Newbie trying to create a sports composite photo

[jake14mw]

Hi Everyone,

I'm new here. I have had Elements 6 for a while, but I am having real trouble with even the simplest of things. I have been trying to create a 8x10 composite photo for the basketball team I coached similar to this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aagriego/2884214680/

I'm not looking for it to be that fancy. I'm looking for just the same layout, with a team and individual picture, team name, individual name, and maybe solid red background or maybe a red background with a gradient. I have been trying for a while and am having all kinds of trouble. I was able to create a red background, but then was having trouble changing the size of the pictures and placing them correctly.

Would someone mind giving me directions on how to do this? I hate to ask for that since I know my problem is that I just don't know the basics well enough, but we have a banquet on Thursday night, and I would like to give them to the players then. My backup plan is to just give them 8x10 team pictures. Thank you for any help you can provide. I've really been humbled trying to accomplish this.

[Jeff Perry]

Jake14mw, here is one way, given your time constraints.

Open the PSE Editor.
Click on the Create Tab in the middle on the right side.
Click on Photo Collage
Ignore the "Theme" and go down to "Choose Layout"

Go down about 3/4 of the way to the portrait thumbnail with two gray boxes one at the top and one at the bottom of the white thumbnail. Hover your cursor over it and it says 2 Portrait Vertical.

Click on it and click done, and let PSE work its magic.

Now click on the EDIT tab.

Click the Move tool (V on the keyboard)

Click on the "No Theme 2" layer in the layer panel.

Click inside the top gray box, hold the mouse button and move the box over to the right a bit.

Click on the "No Theme 1" layer in the panel, and you'll see the little square handles at the corners and along the edges of the other gray box. Click and grab the "handle" on the right and drag the edge of the box over to the right, do the same with the one on the left, drag it to the left.

Click the green check mark to commit the transformation.

Right-Click on the Background layer and choose Simplify.

Change the color and/or add a gradient to the background layer. If you need help with that, post back.

Now select the "No Them 2" layer at the top again, and then activate the Text Tool (T) and click where you want to type. The text will automatically be added to a new layer above all the rest.

Click somewhere else to add a different line of text (on its own layer). You can change the fonts, color, etc, with the options bar at the top.

When you are done, you now have a template.

Click in the middle of the gray box to load an image. Once loaded, right click inside the image and some adjustment commands will be available to you.

When you have your pictures loaded, SAVE AS a new PSD file name.

One of the options when you right click inside the frame layer, is Clear Photo, another is Replace Photo, use those commands to add different player's pictures.

Good luck.

jeff

[jake14mw]

Jeff,

Thank you very much for your reply. I got through your instructions very well until you say "Click on the "No Theme 1" layer in the panel, and you'll see the little square handles at the corners and along the edges of the other gray box." When I did that, I never saw the little square handles. I don't know how to resize that box so that I can put the horizontal team picture in there. Any ideas? Thanks.

[Bayla]

Jake,

Make sure you have 'show bounding box' checked in the top toolbar. You won't be able to see the square 'grab' handles if it is unchecked.

Bayla