Help in PSE 5

I may have gone about this in entirely the wrong way but what I am trying to achieve is this: in the screenshot below I have a background layer, a text layer ('vision') and I have placed another layer, which is clipart of a dancer over the letter 'O'. I want to see the background through the silhouette dancer. I thought this would be simple but, for the life of me, I cant get it to work. Do any of you brilliant photoshoppers know how to do this?

Thanks,

Click on the layer containing the dancer to make it active and then use the Opacity slider near the top of the layers pad (set to 100% by default).

Job's a good'un

I think just making the dancer transparant will only unmask the the "O" in vision. I think the idea is to get a dancer shaped hole in the "O" of vision.

I'm no expert and I have only tried this on PSE7 so it might not work on PSE5:

Put the layer with vision next to the layer with the dancer with the dancer to the front.

Turn off all but these two layers and use "merge layers" in the layers menu.

With this merged layer use the quick selection tool to highlight the dancer and press delete. This should create a hole the shape of the selected dancer.

Turn all the other layers back on.

I have only tried this with graphical shapes and not text but looking at your screen dump I think the "Vision" layer is not text so it will probably work.

I hope this helps,

Glyn

Glyn, you are a genius and have my eternal grovelling gratitude.

Thanks

If Glyn's right and that's what you want to do then select the Ctrl-click on the dancer layer to make a selection, then Ctrl-Shift-I to reverse the selection, then make sure the "Vision" layer is active and add a layer mask. You can now turn off the visibility of the dancer layer and you should have a dancer-shaped hole in the letter O which is non-destructive and can be moved around.

My pleasure

Glyn

Your idea is right, but......As far as I know Elements 5 don't have layer masks available as default, besides some adjustment layers. But No separate masks like in PS. Unless Ken has downloaded and installed Grant's tools as a plug-in. Which I doubt.

I've never used Elements - I just assumed it worked like Photoshop.

Wow! How do folk survive without masks?

Thats why I use Elements 6 with Grants tools. And don't need the full version.

I've been using the full version in one form or another since 1995 (v3) - I couldn't face the prospect of having to learn something new now

Thanks, Hefty and Glyn, it worked a treat.

In the end I turned off all the layers except the dancer shape and 'vision' text, merged those two. Then used the magic wand tool to select the dancer and hit 'delete'. Job done!

Just to chip in with the "non destructive" way of doing it in PSE

The easiest way in PS is to add a "show all" layer mask to the text. Then, select the dancer and fill that selection with black - on the layer mask. You can then unlock the mask from the text and have fine movement of the mask. (And of course you can always redo and edit the layer mask ad-infinitum).

In PSE you can achieve exactly the same effect by using "Clipping Masks" (grouping layers). There's a tutorial I did ages ago here:
http://www.photon.me.uk/PSE/PaintingPSE.htm

I always work non-destructively so I can go backwards and forward and change things around at a whim
(Helpful when clients want little tweaks too )

Matt

The client is extremely fussy and difficult, I'm married to her.