Locked and missing transparency on layer

[Fusion]

I find the following very frustrating (this is in Photoshop Elements 2.0 on a Mac).....

I've got a photo of an object where I want to remove everything around and behind the object.

So I use the "magnetic lasso" to carefully mark the outline of this object. When I'm done I press the "Backspace" key to delete the background. The only problem is that this doesn't make the background transparent, but replaces it with the background colour.

So what next?
I duplicate the one and only layer (which is automatically named "Background"). So now I have a second, identical layer called "Background copy").
Making sure I first deselect the "Background" layer, then select "Background copy" layer I then press the "Backspace" key, which indeed removes everything in the background of the photo and replaces it with transparency.

Before saving the image I need to delete the original "Background" layer which doesn't have any transparency.

This is pretty frustrating. Why won't the first layer let me make my images transparent, and why is it locked?
Is there a better way to do things?

[Wendy]

Hi ...

Its just the way that Elements (and Photoshop) work ... an image straight out a camera etc has a background layer on which many things don't work, or work in a different way. Its not locked ... its just how the background layer works.

To change that ... you can simply go to the layers palette ... double click on the background layer, a box pops up asking you to rename it just click OK and then the layer becomes a normal layer which you can erase areas and it will become transparent.

(When you erase a background layer what happens is that it literally replaces the area you erase with the current background colour)

Wendy :)

[Fusion]

Wow! Your trick sure makes things easier than the way I've done things.
Thanks! :)

[Wendy]

Hi ...

Glad to help :)

Wendy