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Dear GAWD Anyone please Help. 4 Hrs gone photoshop is killing me!!

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
April 9, 2018
5 replies
1049 views

If anyone could please help me it would be a god send ive been jacking around for over 4 hours and im no closer to solving my problems than when i first started even after watching 30 tutorials.

Problem #1

I dont seam to have any problems cutting out photos however no matter what i do when i drop a background photo on top of my person they wont merge. Ive seen it done 100 times on You tube take a person drop a background boom no problem. It seams like with most people when they drop a background it merges no problem and the thumbnail icon is just of there background. But whenever i drop a background over a picture and then hit place my thumbnail of my background has what looks like a little folder in the lower right hand corner. And ive tried 100 different combinations but my subject never overlays my background at best its stuck behind the background.

Problem #2

Like i said previously i dont have much problem using pen tool option to cut out photos. However when i go to select and mask and attempt to smooth the edges i get nothing. Ive watched a thousand different videos and it seams like every time they hit view they get a variety of colored pictures i get none. Black and white ,red.Me? Onion skin empty. marching ants,overlay and on black are all just the picture im attempting to change with no colors but the original colors of the picture. So i gave up on that.

So then i tried the option of holding holding the shift key and hitting select and mask which did bring up what im assuming presumably is the old refine edge box which did nothing for me. So i went to the refine edge tool just like ive seen in one million tutorials. They hit the little brush and go to the picture and immediately start cleaning it up. I hit the brush and every time no matter doesnt matter if i hit smart radius,smooth feather anything when i go to the picture i get " Could Not Complete Your Request Because There Is NO Selection To Refine.Make An Inital Selection Before Using The Refine Edge Brush Tool. OMG nothing on earth should be this hard.Dear God can anyone please help me and bless you in advance.

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L

Lumigraphics

Legend

My suggestion is that you take a Basic Photoshop class because I can tell that you are in way over your head.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

You don’t rearrange layers by dropping them ON layers. Drag in the layer palette and drop between, before, or after. This is very basic and very important; the tutorials probably assume you already know this stuff.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

the tutorials probably assume you already know this stuff.

And quite frankly, charlesd65379012, it seemed like you did not understand the difference between Paths and Selections, so maybe you should start with basic tutorials to familiarise yourself with Photoshop principles and terminology.

C

charlesd65379012Author

Participating Frequently

Other people have been really helpful and have explained things in terms i understand now and while i certainly dont mind "constructive criticism " over my lack of every term yes even some basic ones if your only goal is simply to chastise someone today do me a favor and keep it to yourself .Thank you in advance of any further replies.

C

charlesd65379012Author

Participating Frequently

P.s I aslo made sure to get on the second picture on the thumbnail of the beach im not sure why in the lower right hand corner you see like that little folder icon. I watched 20 tutorials last night and no one else had that on there thumbnail. And it never pops up until i drop the beach photo and then i hit place.

davescm

Community Expert

Hi

The symbol on the beach layer thumbnail is indicating that the beach image has been placed in a smart object. That just acts as a container and can double click on it to open the container and edit the contents. That is not the problem here.

Your issue is the layer order. In Photoshop images are viewed looking from the top layer downwards. So the beach layer is covering up the people layer. Just drag the people layer (labelled layer 1) to the top in the layers panel.

It looks like you need to follow some tutorials on masking to get the edges to blend. In Photoshop we tend to make a selection then turn the selection into a mask. The advantage is that the mask can be refined and altered later - which is not the case with a copied/cut out section.

Dave

C

charlesd65379012Author

Participating Frequently

Im not sure what you mean at the moment the people is labled #70 at the top if i try an drop it on layer 0 it does nothing so im not sure exactly looking at the box what you mean by the :"top of the panel " thank you. Umm and ive watched about 20 tutorials on masking to get the edges to blend and i follow step by step exactly to the letter what they do in the videos and i always get the error message.

c.pfaffenbichler

Community Expert

Like i said previously i dont have much problem using pen tool option to cut out photos. However when i go to select and mask and attempt to smooth the edges i get nothing.

Paths are not Selections, so what exactly are you talking about?

If you want to make a Selection from a Path you can do so in the Paths Panel – »Make Selection« from the fly-out menu or the »Load path as a selection«-icon at the bottom of the Panel.

C

charlesd65379012Author

Participating Frequently

I appreciate your reply and i just cant figure out what im doing wrong. No matter what i try it just seams like im incapable of blending the two pictures together or getting the brush tool to smooth my edges. Thank you for any advice. The second picture shows my original background but ive also attempted deleting it and just going with the becah thumb nail and the layer of me and my nephew but no matter what i try i cant get us on the beach or smooth the edges. Thank you