Make part of a scanned photo semi-transparent?

[jrpatdlgs]

I've been trying to learn Photoshop on my own -- just me and the "Help" menu. Ouch. I've hit a stone wall.

I need to draw an elipse on part of a scanned color photo and then make the area outside the elipse partially transparent so that when I print the result the whole photo is visible but just the area within the elipse is at 100% opacity. Can anyone provide step-by-step instructions for me?

Thanks,
John

 

[jimoblak]

Assuming you don't really have anything underneath the image to show transparency, you can simply lighten the area around the ellipse.

Select the ellipse
Invert the selection (Select>Invert)
Lighten the surrounding area (Image>Adjust>Brightness/Contrast)

For further study and more functions, check out layer masks and feathering in the Photoshop manual.

- - picklefish - -

 

[jrpatdlgs]

Jimoblak

Many thanks -- it worked perfectly!

John