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Open the photo that you wish to use in the Elements Editor. Then:
- Go to the Guided edit mode
- Choose the Special Edits tab and
- Click on the Replace Background guided edit.
This will guide you through the process until you gain a better understanding of how to do it.
There are usually several ways to accomplish a task in Elements. The Guided Edit I have shown you will do exactly what you want and gives you some flexibility. In the following screenshot, (1) you will see that the first step is to Select the Subject defined by (2) the black and white marching ants around the selection. Elements will use Artificial Intelligence to do that automatically, but the selection can be refined. You can then choose an alternative background to place behind the subject (like a green screen). As you will see, you can Import your own photo (3).
As soon as you select the photo, it will replace the background of the original photo.
In order to understand what is going on here, you need to learn about layers. I suggest you read this article which will give you the fundamentals. In my screenshot above, you will see that the Guided Edit has created 3 new layers in the original file:- a. the original photo background layer; b. a copy of the original (for safety); c. the replacement photo and d. another copy of the original photo with a black and white thumbnail mask.
The mask hides the background (shown in black) of the original photo and shows (in white) only the subject of the photo. This allows the new background which is in the layer underneath to appear behind the subject boy.
As an altenative, you can simply select the subject in the Expert mode of the Editor and delete the background:
You can then copy and paste this image onto another photo which is your chosen background.
Hope I haven't confused you too much.
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