http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=11qD3LFUYF7OjGc9l1STI3G0bSA6 8I1

1. Duplicate the Background layer and turn off the visibility of the Background layer.

2. On the duplicate layer, draw your border with the Rectangular Marquee tool.

3. Invert and feather the selection. In my example I used 20 px, but it will depend on the dimensions of your pic.

4. <Delete> the selection.

Note that you can omit the duplicate layer if you rename the Background layer to anything else and work on that.

I'll go into more detail.  These instructions and screen shot are for PC and PSE version 2, so things may be a bit different in your version or if you have a Mac.

To duplicate the Background layer:

From the Menu bar: Layer > Duplicate Layer, or you can right-click the layer in the Layers Palette and select "Duplicate Layer".

To turn of visibility of the Background layer, click the eye icon in the Layers Palette to toggle it off.

Choose the Rectangular Marquee tool and draw the border within the picture, as in this screnshot:

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=130Ja1UO5688FJPIEZzDRvFholdR 1

This actually selects the portion of the picture inside the border, not the border itself. To select just the border you need to invert the selection. From the Menu bar: Select > Inverse (or Shift-Ctrl-I).

Now you need to feather the selection to get the softened edges and transparency. From the Menu bar: Select > Feather.

Now <Delete> (or Edit > Delete, or Ctrl-X). This creates the soft-to-transparent (checkered background) border on the duplicate layer.

If you are going to import the picture into a graphic application or web page where you need the transparent border, you must save the picture in a format that supports transparency. File types PSD, TIFF, PNG,  PNG-24, GIF, EPS support transparency.  JPG, BMP do not. For a web page you probably want GIF.

Paul,

Another  thing to try. I had mentioned that you can make your changes directly on the original picture layer (Background) rather than making a duplicate layer. However you must first rename the Background to anything else.  Then do the select/invert/feather/delete and see if that works.

The reason for renaming is that when you delete something from the layer named "Background" the deleted stuff is not transparent but filled in with the  color defined in the current background color swatch at the bottom of the toolbar.

Paul,

To resize the PSE window, click the Restore Down icon at the top right corner. This should shrink the PSE window somewhat. Then you can drag any corner handle to resize it.

I have an idea of why you are seeing no changes using the duplicate layer method. Maybe you are turning off the visibility of the Background layer late in the game. You should turn off its visibility immediately after you create the duplicate layer. Like I said in my previous post, if the Background layer is visible it will show through any transparency in the duplicate layer and the net effect is no change.

You said making the changes on the renamed Background layer worked, but when you saved it a gif the transparency turned to white.  I don't know how this could happen.  Again, it would help if you can upload to www.pixentral.com a screen shot of the picture and Layers Palette after you have made all your changes.  Also, a screenshot using the duplicate layer method if you still have problems with that.

There should be a layers tutorial somewhere in your PSE Help. Which version are you using?  A Google search of "photoshop layers tutorial" or similar will turn up a wealth of info.

Here's one way to visualize layers:

Remember your old biology textbook? There was a page showing a blank outline of the human body. On top of that page was a mylar sheet showing the skeletal system. On top of that another mylar with the muscular system.  Another with the cirulatory sytem, another with some organs, etc. Equating this to PSE, the bottom page (body outline) is the Background layer, and the mylars are the layers above it. The transparent portions of  the mylars are equivalent to the transparent portions of the PSE layers. So the result of what you are seeing is a combination of all, viewed from the top layer in the stack to the bottom layer. Removing a mylar is equivalent to turning off a layer's visibility. Rearranging the mylars is equivilant to rearranging the order of the PSE layers.

SkipII wrote:

 

re: resizing window.

 

The only options on the top right are:

 

Cascade windows

Automatically Tile

Maximize.

I was referring to the Restore Down icon at the very top blue bar. On my PC (Windows XP), this bar has the title "Adobe Photoshop Elements" and there are 3 icons on the right edge of the bar. They are Minimize, Restore Down, and Close. These are the same on all Windows XP applications, not just PSE.

Skip,

One more way you might try:

1. Make the rectangular selection on the original Background layer.

2. Do not invert the selection, but do feather it as before.

3. Copy the selection to the clipboard (Edit > Copy).

4. File > New from Clipboard.  This creates a new file with the transparency, but with reduced dimensions.