layer and cutting problems making a stencil

hey guys, i'm a complete noob on PS... Using CS4 and i'm trying to make a stencil using threshold method. I've been following a tutorial by melissaclifton if you know it but am having problems. She says to duplicate the layer, drag a solid colour between them, and then cut away the background using pen tool. I cut the image, after inversing it, and in the thumbnail it looks ok, but in the main view nothinjg happens. I expected to be able to see the solid colour backgroud as sooon as I hit delete. Cutting the image also caused me a few problems!
Does anyone know any other stencil and/ or simple layer cutting tutorials? I've searched a lot and am starting to lose patience.. Thought it would be simple (maybe it is!).
Any help would be greatly appreciated
A. Noob

hi,
I am a novice my self....
I think you may be misunderstanding a step...
there a point where you make a new fil layer...... normally that will be put at the top when created ... well according to the tutorial (if i am looking at the right one) you need to drag that fill layer between the orginal layer and the dup layer.... other wise your not going to see the results of cutting out... orwhat ever functions you use..
hope that helps

kunminger said:

hey guys, i'm a complete noob on PS... Using CS4 and i'm trying to make a stencil using threshold method. I've been following a tutorial by melissaclifton if you know it but am having problems. She says to duplicate the layer, drag a solid colour between them, and then cut away the background using pen tool. I cut the image, after inversing it, and in the thumbnail it looks ok, but in the main view nothinjg happens. I expected to be able to see the solid colour backgroud as sooon as I hit delete. Cutting the image also caused me a few problems!
Does anyone know any other stencil and/ or simple layer cutting tutorials? I've searched a lot and am starting to lose patience.. Thought it would be simple (maybe it is!).
Any help would be greatly appreciated
A. Noob

jerrylb said:

hi,
I am a novice my self....
I think you may be misunderstanding a step...
there a point where you make a new fil layer...... normally that will be put at the top when created ... well according to the tutorial (if i am looking at the right one) you need to drag that fill layer between the orginal layer and the dup layer.... other wise your not going to see the results of cutting out... orwhat ever functions you use..
hope that helps

yeah i've done that, and then cut on the original copy.. should i cut the new duplicate layer instead?

and thanks a lot for the reply