Contracting a selection

Okay, this may sound dumb but here goes... I just bought adobe ps 7 and trying to learn some cool things from the tutorials on this site. I tried doing the gel text effect but on the 2nd step, where you have to contract the selection to 10 pixels, a warning message pops up that says "no pixels are more than 50% selected. the selection edges will not be visible." thanx a bunch for any help.

It´s just a warning that your selection is getting too small to show on screen. You eiteher need to work with larger letters or contract by less than 10 pixels

This mean than you selection is to small... You basic selection is probably to small...

It is imporant to knowthen ehne you redusce the size of image by 10 pixel you are shrinking you selection by 10 pixel on each side... so you are losing 20 pixel in reality...

Also ehrn you are doing a tutorial remeber than all the values are only sugestions... expeeriment difirent values by yourself... then you can tell you are creative!

Ummmm, no.

What's happening is just what the Photoshop warning message is telling you.

You have made a selection...and you can see the marching ants/dotted lines that indicate the outer bounds of the selection. Now, then...when you contract the selection by 10 pixels (as long as it's physically large enough) the resulting selection is trying to surround pixels that are less than 50% opaque. Photoshop's selection marquee will only delineate around pixels that are 50% opaque or more. The result is that you quite possibly DO have a selection active, but the pixels contained in the selection are less than 50% opaque. You may not see the marching ants/dotted lines/selection marquee, but that doesn't mean you don't have an area selected and active.

What is important, as stated above, is that you'll need to experiment to see what works for your specific project. That's half the fun, anyway.

Oh duh!! I figured it out guys but thanx so much for the help. I just needed a larger letter to work with.