Photoshop 7 , can anyone help me?

Okay I just got photoshop 7 and i downloaded the sl templates they are cool. I can take a shirt template and color it no problem, but i am having trouble with merging layers like say i wanna put a mickey mouse on a white tee, i cant understand how to merge the layers also i am having trouble with makeing transparent imagines like if I wanted to make a tattoo i dont know how to make the area around it transparent, please oh please if you know how , pass on the wealth even the photoshop for dummies book is no help lol what am i doing wrong lol (Shanna Dayton)

You can set it at the top to have a transperient background (should be a box and checkmark) saving after clicking off the template layers..

As for merging layers...you want mickey on the top..make sure hes above the rest of them you can drag a layer from the right above the others...and you don't need to merge the layers right away make sure that it looks right first... But when it is you then select any layer... make sure they are all showing but the template. and then go to the top toolbar //layers..merge visible layers..


Hmmm this always seems easier to do than explain ..

If you have any more questions ask.

you should head over to Spacethinkdream.com They have two great tutorials by Neph and Nicola - both in pdf format.

Shanna, I'm wondering why you feel you need to merge layers in the first place. If you want to put Mickey Mouse on a white T-shirt (to use your example), just create a layer for Mickey above the layer with the shirt on it. There is absolutely no need to merge the two that I can think of for something this simple. If you really want to do it though, you can do what Tipsy said, or you can just press ctrl-L to merge your currently selected layer with the next visible one immediately below it.

As I said though, there is no need to do this for the purposes you mentioned. In fact I would strongly recommend against doing it. If you want to turn your Mickey shirt into a Goofy shirt, with the layers unmerged, all you need to do is turn off the Mickey layer, and adda Goofy layer. If they are merged, you'll have to create the whole shirt all over again.

When you save, do it as PSD first to preserve the layer structure, and then save a copy as TGA for the actual image you will upload to SL.

As for your transparency question, this is by far the most commonly asked about topic on this forum. Depending on which version of PS7 you have, the answer is slightly different. If you have 7.0, all you need to do is turn off the background layer and you should end up seeing the transparency grid (gray and white checker board). Save everything as 32 bit, and you're good to go.

If you have the patched version, then you will need to manually paint the alpha channel to set transparency. There are many tutorials for this, including the one Damien mentioned.