I purchased Elements 4.0 as a newbie.... i am a quick learner and thought i would catch on. Well, i am stuck. I realize that there are tutorials but they dont seem to help my prob. It happens right away to me. I dont know if there is a master reset that i can try - but anyhow, I open it up to a blank page. I then open up a picture and it is shown in the bottom right corner as a "Layer" I then open up a paper and it doesnt show as a "Layer" - and then i cant interact the two. Does this make anysense? It shows them as being locked. - i hae tried everything to get them unlocked - but it is a constant default.

Check your PMs {click on "private messages", right side of screen, to see this msg]

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Pat
Memory Box Artist

I'm having the same problem and was hoping to read some 'help' on the site. I was disappointed to see that it went to PM!

I too am lost w/PSE4! That whole layer thing's got me lost. I finally figured out how to move items to the edit page, but can't do a thing with them once there because of the layers. I have read and reread the manual. I'm about to give up!!!

Ok guys, I'll try to help! We've all been there and don't feel stupid because it is not easy to do at first, we've all been there!

Ok first thing to do is make sure you are in Standard Edit mode and not Quick fix or something like that (I have PSE 3 but I'm 99% sure this will be the same for 4).

Ok so now we want to open up some pics right, so go file open and get some pics. Now change your windows view from full screen to either tile or cascade so you can see all the pics and not just one. Now if you click on the pics with the arrow tool (move tool) then you can see that they each have one layer in their thumnail that corresponds to the pic.

Now create a new document (file-new) and make sure its set to 300 dpi in whatever size you are looking to scrap (8.5x11, 12x12, etc). The background for a general page can be either white or transparent, it doesn't matter for a LO.

Now move all the pics around so that the new document is the prominent one you see. You can also shrink them down some by draggin them in from the sides to make more room to work.

Click on one of your pics, now click on the thumbnail of that pic in the layers palatte and drag it onto the new document (you should see the edge of the new document go black when you get it there) and let go. Now your new document should have two layers, the original background layer and the picture layer. You can now resize your pic, or delete some of it by using the rectangular marquee tool. If you want to crop it, you need to do that to the original pic before dragging because the crop tool works on the entire new document not just the picture layer.

Now you can add additional layers and add matts to them, you can add embellishments like ribbons and stuff just like the picture you added. Open them up, drag their thumnail in the layers palatte to the new document and then move around on the new document.

You can put something behind something else by draggin the thumnail in the new document below the thumnail of the item you want it behind. And it works the same way if you want it on top of something.


If you are still having problems draggin the thumnails, you can also select your pic, then go to edit-copy or control-c and then when you click on your new document click edit-paste or control-v and the new layer with the pic will be added. Some people just don't like the click and drag and do this method exclusively, but I use the click and drag thumnails technique.

And just for some more help with pics...open this tutorial and work through each step, even if its not what you are wanting for a real page, just do it for practice and then don't save: http://scrapbook-bytes.com/cgi-scrip...icle_275.shtml


The key I believe is getting the view off of maximized view and into one where you can see everything and move one thing to another. I hope that helps, let me know if you have more questions. It really is a great program and once you get the intitial learning done, you will be rocking out some pages!

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I always welcome cc of my LOs!! My work is like me- in progress!

My Gallery

Thanks, Spruncey! I'll print your post and follow step by step. I'll let you know what I accomplish

Thank you,Spruncey! I printed your post and followed it step by step-everything was going along beautifully. I had chosen a beautiful background paper and it showed as the background palette on the right side of my screen. I clicked 'new layer', renamed it and dragged my picture onto the document. Now the right side of the screen changes the picture to the background (and seemingly ignores my 'background' and 'new layer' which were there before. What am I doing wrong???!!! (It's hard not to feel stupid when it keeps happening over and over again!) I've followed the tutorial and I don't have a problem doing that-the problem seems to happen when I try to use the papers and elements from a kit and not just the colors off the computer. Thanks again for any help-your post helped me along beautifully until that snag.

Sprauncey--I did it!!! Thanks so much! I still have a question, however. I'd saved numerous elements & papers to my organizer for easier access and visibility, but I can't access them thru file>open. I haven't tried going directly to the organizer yet, but I thought i'd ask first. Thanks again.