How To Use a Plopper in Photshop Elements

First, open the .png file of the Plopper you want to use.

You can see the openings in the Plopper, you will place your photos behind so that they will show through the opening, rather like a frame.

Now open the photo (or photos) you are using. (It may be easiest to maximize the screen that the Plopper is on if you have more than a single photo open, such as in this example.) Now click and drag your first photo onto the Plopper. As you can see, your photo is on TOP of the Plopper, and you want it UNDER it. In the layers palette, click and drag the photo layer underneath the Plopper layer, as shown.

Use the move tool to position the photo where you want. Resize the photo as needed. Repeat this with all the photos you are using. Sometimes your photo may be too large, if you have a multi-photo Plopper, and it may obscure another photo. There are a few different ways to fix this. One way is with the Magic Wand tool. Make sure your Plopper layer is selected n the layers palette. Click on the Magic Wand in the tool box, and make your settings are like this:

Click inside one of the openings in the Plopper. Now Select>Modify>Expand to make the selection larger, usually around 25 pixels or so.

Click on your photo in the layers palette. Now Select>Inverse, so that the area of the photo that is NOT showing under the Plopper is selected, and hit Delete. Select>Deselect to get rid of the marching ants. Repeat this process for any photos that are overlapping.

The final step is to add any text, titles or extra elements to your Plopper that you wish, and save!