Photoshop newbie question

[Tomsche]

So I finally got my hands on Photoshop (yeah, welcome to the 21st century) and... I can`t get head nor tails of it and the layer thingie.

I would like to place a miniature `in` a background, but if I open them both, I get two different pages and no idea how to place it into each other.

Anyone willing to help lil` ol` dinosaur here with a quick tutorial, `cause google-fu and help-fu skills are, well, let`s say inadequate 

[NurgleHH]

The easiest way is, when you copy your miniature-picture and then copy it into the background. But first you need to set your miniature free and make a transparent background in your miniature-picture...

[Tomsche]

Biigest problem is that I can`t seem to get two pictures `together` in one layergroup, in order to stack them untop of each other.

[matakishi]

Start with your background. Create a new layer and paste the figure into that. Merge the layers to see them together.
There's rather more to it than that but those are the basic steps.

[Tomsche]

Alright, thanks for the answers so far, managed to get two pictures in one for the moment, now I`m puzzling around how to get the `white background` away so the scenery in the back shows trhough.

If I ever get this done, I`m dedicating it to the LaF people...

[Westfalia Chris]

THere usually is something called a "wand" tool (used to be activated by the hotkey "w", duh!). You can set different sensibility levels for that, depending on how good the contrast from the figure to the backdrop is - I usually use between 30 and 50 percent.

You select the tool, set the sensibility, and click on the white background - it should select all pixels within 50% colour variance from the one you clicked. You can then delete this selection, and the layer beneath should become visible.

Alternatively, you can use the "magnetic lasso" tool to trace a mask around the figure, although with good contrast, the magic wand usually works just as well and is quicker. If using the magnetic lasso, though, you might need to invert the selection, otherwise you will delete the figure, not the surroundings (wand tool, right-click, click "invert"). That said, my Photoshop is from 2002, so the actual names for the functions might have changed.

[theoldschool]

The simplest way is:

1. Open both the background and figure images.
2. Convert the figure image to a smart object (layer from the menu, choose smart object, then convert to smart object from the fly out) this allows you to scale the image without losing quality.
3. Click on the figure image and hold the mouse button down and drag it over the background image. When you have it over the background let go and it will be placed as a new layer on top of the background.

If you hold the shift key while you do 3 it will place the figure image in the centre of the background.

If you are using a Mac you can just drag one image on top of the other. If you are on a PC you need to drag it up to the background image tab and then when the background image appears you can place the figure image.

Hope that helps.

Pat

[Centaur_Seducer]

Quick masking is another quick way.
http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/masking/masking.htm

It takes some time to get hang of, but it beats the wand tool, magnetic lasso or pen.