Color typing and copying problem in Photoshop

1. I pick up a blue background .gif picture and when I go on to type in it, all it does is type in light bluish. Ive tried all sorts of things, it just wont budge.

2. I've tried to copy a little button into a row. But there's no way to choose where the copy goes, it just pastes over itself. I've tried Ctrl+j, to duplicate it, but my problem now is I cant select a place to paste it on like you would with normal documents.

Thanks id appreciate response. this is an emergency!

You can't edit a .gif file in the way you are trying to. When you see in the Layers' Palette, you'll see the layer is as Index. All the options at the bottom (delete, adjustment layer, link, etc) are all grayed out.

To activate all, you need to 1st change the Indexed Mode to RGB Color.
For this, go to (Menu Bar) Image ---> Mode ---> RGB Color.

You will see now all the options have been activated. Now you can add text, change colors, duplicate, edit, anything.

After you are done, save it in .gif format. File ---> Save As (Ctrl+Shift+S) ---> CompuServe GIF.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
DMB