Overlay photo w/ Excel Spreadsheet?

[John Cater]

Hi, I'm a newbie to Photoshop 6. I have a photo that I have Image Sized to 8.5 x 11. I want to overlay it with a new layer I've created with the exact same dimensions. I know how to change the opacity of the Excel layer so I can see my background through it. I can't figure out how to make the Excel layer 8.5 x 11. I'm doing a copy from Excel and pasting onto the background layer. Should I be doing this some other way? Thanks for your help. John C.

[Don McCahill]

You might want to do a "print Screen" of the excel screen, and then place it in a layer of its own. As long as it is not the background layer, you can set the opacity of the layer in the Layers Palette.

[John Cater]

In Excel, I did an Alt-Print Screen. I went to PS, created a new layer, then did an Edit | Paste. That still puts a small image of my spreadsheet onto my background. I need my Excel image to be 8.5 x 11. I do not know how to resize my Excel spreadsheet image layer so that it completely covers my background. I'm trying to make a spreadsheet with my photo as a subtle background. Remember to be elementary with me. I'm very new to PS. Thanks.

[Mike Saxon]

John: you may not need to use Photoshop at all, but can do it all within MS Excel. Here's how:

1. Open your Excel file.
2. Go to File menu>Page setup>Header/Footer.
3. Choose Custom Header>Centre Section.
4. Click on Insert Picture button (2nd from right) and select your image (jpg, tif, bmp, etc) from the dialog box>OK
5. Click on Format picture button (righthand side), and adjust the size, position, crop dimensions, transparency, brightness and contrast of your picture. Also click on Compress to reduce the file size of your spreadsheet with your image.
6. Back out of all your boxes(OK>OK>etc) and click on Print preview to see what it looks like. Adjust to taste.

"Sometimes when you cannot bring Mohammad to the mountain, you must take the mountain to Mohammad."

Mike

P.S. This technique also works in MS Word documents, and can insert an image as a watermarked background, using the Header/Footer insert option.