Opening Two Photos (at once) in Editor

[Robroy]

Hi .... I'm a new user in PhotoShop 5 ..... I've been intrigued at the tutorial I received after registering my software where the image of a man is transferred or copied from one photo into another ( this is the beach boy with the sailboat coming out of his ear photos )

Trying to duplicate this, I find I can't get two photos to open at once in the full edit mode although they do appear in the tray ..... can someone give me an idea what I'm not doing properly ... would much appreciate any help

RobRoy

[SharLamb]

Rob, if you just click onto them in the photo bin, they will open. You probably have them stacked on top of each other, and therefore can't see the one below the top one. Drag the photo you see by the top edge over to the left or right, and I'll bet the other one is beneath it. If not, someone else will have to step in and help you. I'm at a remote computer this week, and do not have PSE installed here, so I can't go there and experiment. -------------Think I'll ask my DS if he will allow me to download a trial version onto his cpu. I feel so lost w/o it!

Shar

[Dot-tea]

What is the web address for the tutorial of which you speak? I would also like to know how to take a picture and add it to another also.

[Diana]

Hi RobRoy,

In PSE 5 you can drag a photo from the photo bin up to the photo displayed in the work area. The photo dragged up becomes a new layer on top of the photo you drag it to.

Select the Move tool.

Make your destination photo active in the workspace.

Click and hold the mouse on the photo in the photo bin you want to move, then drag it up to the photo in the workspace.

As Shar mentioned, if the photo you are dragging to the base photo is larger it may cover the base photo. Look in your layers palette to the right of the workspace and you should see a layer for both of them.

To resize a photo that is larger than the photo you dragged it onto (the bounding box handles may not be visible), make sure you have the Move tool selected, then press Ctrl-0 (zero) and you should be able to see the bounding box around the large photo on top. Drag inward on one of the corner handles to resize it smaller to the size you need.

I'm not sure if this was your exact problem, but hope this helps.

Diana

[Diana]

If you have trouble dragging the photo to combine with another, there's always the old standby, Copy and Paste.

Make the source photo active in the workspace. From the menu, Select>All (shortcut Ctrl-A). This puts the "marching ants" around the whole image.

Next, from the menu, Edit>Copy (shortcut Ctrl-C)

Then make the destination photo active in the workspace and from the menu, Edit>Paste (shortcut Ctrl-V).

Diana

[Robroy]

Thanks for the reply ..... it does appear that these 2 photos are "stacked" in the editor workspace but when I try to move either one I get the error message that my request could not be completed because the layers are locked and these are background layers so I guess they can't be unlocked (?)

Thanks anyway, it was kind of you to try to help.

RobRoy

[riversidema]

Can you "restore down" one or both of the images? (The double box icon, not minimize or close)

[Robroy]

Just found the problem ( after many hours of horsing around ) .... when I clicked on the "Cascade Windows " buttom in the upper right corner of my screen just under the minimize button then I finally got the two photo frames opened in the editor space and was able to move them around and etc. etc.

Thank you again for the help.

RobRoy

[Robroy]

You gave me the right idea .... when I clicked on the "Cascade Windows" button under the Minimize button in the upper right corner of my screen .... aha .... there I now have the two photos open and can move them around now..
Thank you for the inspiration !

Rob Roy

[Robroy]

Problem solved after many hours of fooling around ..... when I clicked on the "Cascade Windows" button under the Minimize button in the upper right corner of my screen .... aha ! .... there I now have the two photos open in the editor window and can move them around now..

I love these "aha" moments .... thank you for your help .... I appreciate your replies.

RobRoy

[Diana]

Robroy, please don't give up. This is one of the basic things you'll need to know how to do in using Elements.

Here is an illustration showing the Layers Palette and Photo Bin. Make sure these are both open and visible on your Elements screen. If not, from the menu, click on Windows then make sure Layers and Photo Bin have check marks by them.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1rocN0kB7yg37iE0p7OBzOQlllTtdV_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1rocN0kB7yg37iE0p7OBzOQlllTtdV)

As shown on the illustration, to move one photo onto another, select the Move tool, then (for PSE 5.0) drag one photo up from the Photo Bin to the other photo in the workspace.

Here is a second image showing how the combined photos should look in the workspace and how you should now have two layers in the Layers Palette.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1scvJvf9aFr2PsLte8hPAmu869bL90_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1scvJvf9aFr2PsLte8hPAmu869bL90)

If the photo you moved up is as large or larger than the photo you added it to, the photo on top will cover up the background photo on the bottom layer. This is where the bounding box handles come in. You then point to one of the corner squares (handles) and drag inward to downsize the image, so the layer underneath will show through. You can also point to the middle of the smaller image and drag it around to reposition it.

Give this a try and see how it goes and let us know.

Diana