Here is my first question. I was messing around with the program last night and was trying to cut one of my kids out of the picture so it was just him.... on a transparent background so I could put him in a totally dif. background. For the life of me I could not figure it out. I tried and tried but coudln't get it. I even looked in my book and still couldnt' do it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Beth, the tool you need to use is called the lasso tool. Here are some tutorials I found at www.pircnet.com.
http://www.eastofthesun.com/pi8/cutout.htm
http://www.ulead.com/learning/pi/pi8_03_1.htm

HTH

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Jacqueline
Kitty and Baby Mama
My Gallery

Thanks so much for the links...I checked them all out and put them all into my favorites, so hopefully I won' t have to bug you as much with all my questions LOL

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Bug me all you like, Beth!

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Jacqueline
Kitty and Baby Mama
My Gallery

Beth,

One of the differences between PI and PSE is the use of objects and layers. When you're working with UFO files in PI, each object is a layer, and the entire layer is the object. Hmm...that didn't make much sense, did it? Okay, if your son is the object, he doesn't need to be on a transparent background because the layer isn't a rectangle--the layer is only the shape and size of your son. The only time you need to worry about transparency in PI is when you create a new document (or when saving as a PNG). You can choose to have the background be a color or transparent, but all layers above the background will work the way I described above.

As for the easiest way to cut your son out of the background, I have no luck with the lasso, since I trace terribly. I tend to select a rectangle which includes my subject, convert it to an object, place it in the new file with the background I want, and then use a combination of the magic eraser and regular eraser to remove the old background.

Hope this helps!