Using templates in Photoshop
I'm posting this because I see this question so often and most of the tutorials for it are for PSP. Anyway, there are no pictures to go along with it, but hopefully I've explained it well enough that no one will be confused.
This is how I get templates to work for me. Somone else may do it differnetly. All I know is that it gets the job done and that's all that really counts :)
I'm putting it behind a cut for the sake of keeping things neat.
I open that image and use the square marquee tool (the one in the upper left hand corner of the toolbox with the dotted line) and select the entire picture and then go to edit>copy.
I then go to file>new and make sure transparent is selected in the box, click OK. Then, open up the template you want to use. Select the entire thing, and copy it.
Go back to your original image and make sure you create a new layer (I think this is where a lot of people get confused) and paste the template into the new layer. If it's a template that isn't already transparent then you'll need to make sure you're still on the layer with the template and use your magic wand tool to clear the white (or whatever color the template creator used) out of the spaces so that your image is showing through.
Now, if there are areas that you want to make completely transparent you need to make sure you're on the layer with the image NOT the template. Select your eraser tool and set it to pencil mode and using either a 1 pixel eraser or a 3 pixel eraser erase the parts of the image that you want to be transparent. This process is a lot easier if you zoom in so that the pixels are actually visible.
Then, when you're finished make sure you save it as a gif in order to preserve your transparency.
And that should do it.
This is how I get templates to work for me. Somone else may do it differnetly. All I know is that it gets the job done and that's all that really counts :)
I'm putting it behind a cut for the sake of keeping things neat.
I open that image and use the square marquee tool (the one in the upper left hand corner of the toolbox with the dotted line) and select the entire picture and then go to edit>copy.
I then go to file>new and make sure transparent is selected in the box, click OK. Then, open up the template you want to use. Select the entire thing, and copy it.
Go back to your original image and make sure you create a new layer (I think this is where a lot of people get confused) and paste the template into the new layer. If it's a template that isn't already transparent then you'll need to make sure you're still on the layer with the template and use your magic wand tool to clear the white (or whatever color the template creator used) out of the spaces so that your image is showing through.
Now, if there are areas that you want to make completely transparent you need to make sure you're on the layer with the image NOT the template. Select your eraser tool and set it to pencil mode and using either a 1 pixel eraser or a 3 pixel eraser erase the parts of the image that you want to be transparent. This process is a lot easier if you zoom in so that the pixels are actually visible.
Then, when you're finished make sure you save it as a gif in order to preserve your transparency.
And that should do it.