I am brand new to digital scrapbooking.  My question is when I use some elements, they do not have a transparent background.  I click and drag them onto the page, but they have a greyish-white square around them.  I sometimes use the magnetic lasso tool and follow all around the design, and then do a copy and paste.  But, I'm wondering if there is some sort of "trick" that I don't know about that makes them transparent.

Thanks so much!

Joyce

Hi Joyce, I'm pretty new to digi-scrapping too - I just started really doing layouts in March of this year.  One lesson I learned was that I couldn't use all my adorable clipart on my layouts for the reason you're stating - the backgrounds aren't transparent.  That's when I really started looking around to see the difference between "clipart", "graphics" and digital scrapbooking kits.  Like Stacy said above, it's that jpg, png file extension.  I never knew what the difference was (and still don't really understand it!) but I know one has a transparent background (png) and one doesn't (jpg and other file types).

I suggest that you download some of the freebies that Ann and Stacy have been offering and really look at the difference.  I'm always amazed at the incredible detail of the elements and papers that these designers create.  When you look at them at 100% - it's just mind boggling!  And when you get to the point where you start printing your layouts, you'll be blown away.  I noticed even more detail when I printed my layouts than I even noticed on the screen!

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.  I'm sure there are lots of experts around who can help.  And I'll share my trials and errors with you too!