This is a silly tag tutorial. There is no logic or careful planning to the choice of graphics other than they worked together to explain some functions of layers.  You will three or four files to complete this tut. They are:

Cedar Box

Frame

Piggies!

Background

There is one more file to download.  It is an inset for the cedar box to make this tut relatively easy to complete in a reasonable amount of time.  This is a tutorial on layers, not the cloning tool and matching textures and tubing.

• Except for the box, you can use your own graphics or download mine.  The box is central to the tutorial and when you've finished making the changes for this tut, you may use it for your own tubes.   Please leave the business names on the lid intact as a personal favor. Local businesses gave these boxes to young women for high school graduation in the 50's.  It sat on Mom's dresser for 53 years.
  
• The piggies tube came thru a shares email group.  I left the file name intact, but cannot identify the creator.
• The country scene graphic was a WET or an email share..

Let's get started!
Open the two cedar box files, the frame and the piggies files in PSP.

The cute little girl in the photograph is me and the old lady watching over me is my great-grandma, Petra. Too bad you can't keep us in the picture!
(I can't believe I am letting you cut me out of the picture and replace me and Gramma with flying pigs!)

Duplicate each one of the new files by pressing "Shift+D" at the same time. Close the originals after you duplicate them.

Before you minimize the rest of the graphics, reduce the view sizes of the box & frame by tapping the (-) minus key.  Drag them close to the layer palette so you can see how the palette reads the graphic's information.  Both files have two layers.  The frame has a transparent background layer but the cedar box has a white background layer.

Click on the white area around the box.  In the layer palette, the bottom layer will be highlighted.  When you click on a layer to make it active, it is highlighted in the pallet.  That layer will be affected by any changes that you make until you change the layers.  With the background layer still active, click on your floodfill tool.  Doesn't matter what color or pattern you have ready.  With the floodfill tool active and match mode set at NONE, click somewhere on the white background and fill the layer.

If you make a mistake and floodfill the top layer, no problem.  Click the undo arrow in your toolbar and try again.

Look at your layer pallet.  There is an "eyeball" to the right of the name in each layer.   It's called the Visibility Toggle. Click on the eyeball next to the highlighted background layer and it will change to an X'd eyeball.   It hides that layer from view.   Click again to "unhide" it.


Remember:   The active layer is highlighted in the palette.  You can make changes to the active layer even if it's hidden.  If the bottom layer in the pallet is greyed out indicating that you can't make changes to the layer properties, it's a BACKGROUND LAYER.   It will always be an opaque layer and probably a really ugly color until you promote it to a raster layer.  A background layer is the most difficult to work with because it lacks elasticity. It is "flat". Make it a habit when you open a jpg or gif file in PSP to right click on the Background Layer in the palette and PROMOTE TO RASTER.

When you hover your mouse cursor over the layers names in the palette, a popup preview will show you what is on the layer, even if it's hidden.


Use the Lasso Tool with these settings to draw a line around the top of the cedar box.


Do not Deselect the Marching Ants.
For kicks and giggles, right click on the layer name and click promote to layer.   What changed in the layer palette is that now you have 3 layers -
1) The box
2)The background
3)The new floating layer.
The new layer is activated and the box layer you were working on becomes inactive.   Click on the box layer again and tap the Delete key. Choose the Promoted Layer, right click on the name in the palette and choose Delete.

From this

To This

The result is a hollow box.  You have successfully Promoted a Selection to a layer and Deleted a layer in an image.  See, it was virtually painless.   Go ahead and delete that Background layer, too. You don't need it....
Kaching!  That makes TWO layers.

Restore (or reopen) boxinset.pspimage.   With it active, go to Edit > Copy. Click back over on the hollow box with the marching ants going around the top.  Click on Edit > Paste into Selection. Wow, that was easy.  You now have an empty box.

If you haven't deleted the white background layer, make sure to hide it.

Right click on the box layer in the palette and chose Merge > Merge Visible.
In this case, there may be some uneven, discolored lines around the top edge of the box where the marching ants tromped a footpath into the path.  Use the soften tool to lightly dust those lines but don't worry too much about them.   A kiss and a promise is sufficient to make this box look positively beautiful!

Time to celebrate.  Take a break and get yourself a cool drink and pat yourself on the back.   The rest will go faster since I am almost done telling you to look at all these silly details and giving you "make work" tasks.

On to Part 3