Adding Pictures

[hkrobin]

I have just started using and am totally frustrated. I've been through a few tutorials and I think I understand, but I can't get the desired results. Case in point - I want to add a picture to a background. I have a file with a background open. Then, I open an existing digital picture, enable the move tool, and try to move the picture to the background. When I do this, the picture takes over the entire background, and usually just a part of the picture. I can't find any way to downsize the picture without distorting the image. I'm obviously doing something very wrong, but I sure don't know what it is. Please help!!

[Carbone]

What's happening is that your second picture (the one you're trying to move over the first one) is probably bigger in size or in resolution than the first one. Several solutions :

- Resize the bigger picture (Image / Resize / Image Size, and make sure the constraint proportion and resample are checked, then enter smaller values for width and height), or...

- After you moved the picture over the first one, first thing, press several times on the Command - Minus (the - key), or Control - Minus on Windows. Then, grab one side of the image window and make room enough to see the grey canvas along with the bounding box of the bigger image. When you do so, press on Command - T (Control - T on the PC), then press and hold the Shift key while you click and drag one of the corner of the image. That'll make sure the image isn't distorted while you resize it (downsize, in your case).

Ray