I want to cut and paste backrounds into some of my comics. How would i do that?

I don't understand this question... can you elaborate?

I think the answer to the question you're asking is found in the "Layers Palette". Look in the bottom right hand corner of PS and that's it. One way to do it is to go to "Layer > New Layer" and then paste your BG on that layer. Then, in the layers palette, drag the BG layer underneath whatever you want "in front of" the BG.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking though... please expand your question.

That sounds like it would work. What i'm trying to do is take a real life picture say from google or something and make it the backround for my comic instead of the nothing that i always have.

And a second question. How would i super impose a head from one picture ontop of another on PS? I always wondered that..

Okay, I'm going to take some screen shots while I create this post out of some files I have laying around. There are defintitely "better" ways to do this, but this will be a good starter method.

Learn to use Photoshop Layers! That's a LARGE part of PS's (and other programs too) power to digitally create stuff.

STEP 1 - Open your desired BACKGROUND IMAGE. Then, press the little button I have circled in the LAYERS PALLETTE. Or... go to LAYERS > NEW > NEW LAYER.


STEP 2 - Notice how there's a new space above the layer labeled BACKGROUND that is blank. This is called a new layer. It is essentially a blank overhead projecter transparency page that you can now start drawing on over top of the background. I used the BRUSH TOOL to draw this little guy on the new layer.


ALTERNATE STEP 2 - You could also: COPY AND PASTE a drawn character from one Photoshop file into another Photoshop file. Just select the drawn character from one scanned in (we'll call this file1). Copy it.


ALTERNATE STEP 3 - Paste the newly copied character from file1 into a NEW LAYER over the BACKGROUND LAYER of the other PS file in "file2".


ALTERNATE STEP 4 - Using a combiniation of the ZOOM TOOL and the ERASER TOOL in Photoshop, you can erase all the bad crap from your newly pasted-in image.


ALSO: Here's a basic video on using LAYERS in Photoshop.
http://video.about.com/graphicssoft/layers.htm

There's A LOT, A LOT better techniques to doing this kind of stuff in Photoshop, I just thought this would be the easiest to explain to a beginner.

I hope that helps... good luck buddy.

Phantom Penguin
And a second question. How would i super impose a head from one picture ontop of another on PS? I always wondered that..

Um, to do this well requires a good amount of Photoshop skill. I'd suggest googling "Photoshop Tutorials" and getting better with Photoshop. Here's what I'd learn first:

1) Layer Pallete.
2) Famliarize all the Tools.
3) Some of the more handy keyboard short cuts.

Once you understand those, all the tutorials will make more sense.


To do this a simple way (but not perfect looking)... just use the steps I used to put a character on a background image... except only copy the head on to a new layer and eraser-out the unwanted edges. Press "CTRL+T" to bring up the resize controls for the newly pasted image so you can get it the exact size you want.

Thats alot of stuff to mess with. Is that also the same way to take to seperate pictures and put them side by side in PS also?

More or less.


Think of PS layers like this:

It's an overhead projector. You start with nothing projected on a solid screen. You add a smiley face on clear overhead page. Then, you add another clear overhead page on top of that. etc, etc, etc...