Making the outside of my cards transparent in PSE13.1

[melissak53112582]

This is a rookie question but I need a little help please.  How do I make the outside of the cards transparent so that I can put the picture of the cards on different backgrounds and the web and such.

Regards,
Jack

[hatstead]

1. Open the file
2. Duplicate the background layer, and shut off the visibility of the background layer. Work on the background copy layer.
3. Activate the Magic Wand tool. On the tool's option bar, set tolerance to 13, check "Contiguous"
4. Left click on an area outside the cards, and hit delete on the keyboard. You may have to do this in 3-4 areas to fetch the entire background. If tiny areas remain, use the eraser tool to dispose of them.
5. Open a blank layer between the background and background copy layers.
6. Here I used a gradient to fill the blank layer for demonstration, but you can use anything that suits your purpose.

[melissak53112582]

I duplicate the background layer to make a background copy

On the original background there is a lock indicating it is partially locked

I click the eyeball of the original layer to stop visibility and the screen goes to all gray and white checkerboard

Cant get it back so I close and open again to try. 

[melissak53112582]

In the end I want to be able to copy and paste (or insert) the cards on documents and on the web, etc and have only the cards show but not the outside.  Be transparent on the outside to what I paste it on.

[hatstead]

melissak53112582  wrote

In the end I want to be able to copy and paste (or insert) the cards on documents and on the web, etc and have only the cards show but not the outside.  Be transparent on the outside to what I paste it on.

ok. The goal is to preserve the cards. This will require to save in a file format which supports transparency, e.g. PNG. Do the following:

1. Open the file
2. Double click the locked Background layer to convert is to a regular layer.
3. Activate the Magic Wand tool and select the area surrounding the cards, then delete.
4. Press CTRL+D to get rid of the "marching ants"
5. Go to File>save as, use PNG file format.
6. Now you can open your PNG file in another session and copy/paste on other documents.

[hatstead]

Once you get to step #4, you should see the checkerboard pattern surrounding the cards. The cards should remain. The checkerboard pattern denotes transparency.

See print screen:

.