And there you have it.

Now many will tell you there are better ways to do this, and they are right! But this is the simplist way to do this from beginning to end.

My favorite variation on this is, instead of using the ERASER TOOL, to use a LAYER MASK on the top layer. With the top layer active, go to the menu item LAYER and select LAYER MASK ---> SHOW ALL. On the LAYERS PALETTE you will see a white rectangle just to the right of your B&W thumbnail. With BLACK as your foreground color, select the BRUSH tool from the TOOL PALETTE. Now simply paint with the black brush where you want the color image to show through. So far, this works exactly like the erase tool. But what if you accidently paint too far and allow some of the background to show through in color? With the LAYER MASK, it is easy to fix these mistakes. Simply switch to a WHITE brush and paint over the area where you made the mistake!

So, a LAYER MASK offers infinite do & redu, whereas the ERASE TOOL simply erases. Try this on one of your own images ~ first using the erase tool then again using a LAYER MASK.

Good luck!

jim