Wanted: help with creating overlapping arc selections

Question

I use Elements 6, make album pages, and want to replicate a design I have seen.  There is a background image. Around the edges are several overlapping arcs which "frame" the image.  Each arc has a white stroke outline and is a different color (obviously pulled from the background image).  The interesting thing is that where two arcs overlap the stroke outlines of both arcs are still visible, and also the section within the overlap has a third  color.  My questions are:
1. How do I create the arcs in the first place? I tried extending the canvas, creating ellipses and moving parts of them over the edge of the background image.  This worked for the first arc, but Elements balked at doing more!  Should I create arcs on separate files and move them over?
2. Once I have two arcs overlapping on a page, how do I retain visibility of both their stroke outlines?  And how do I select the overlapped area in order to recolor it?  How do I make different layers opaque and transparent at the same time, and only show the parts I want visible?  What tool(s) do I use?
Does anyone know?  Or is this something too advanced for Elements?  Thanks.  MH1071

Answer 1

You could use the ellipse shape tool to make the arcs. Drag out an ellipse shape; arching the top to taste. Click on the subtract from shape icon in the options bar and use the ellipse tool again to cut the ellipse.
Use a clipping mask to clip your image to the shape. See this link:
http://www.photokaboom.com/photography/learn/Photoshop_Elements/layers/layer_groups_clippi ng_masks/1_layer_groups_clipping_masks.htm
For the outlines, each shape and use the stroke command (edit<Stroke) to stroke each shape. Note: Stroke will not be included in the clipping group...put it in a blank layer above the clipping group. (On PC, Ctrl click the shape thumbnail will select the shape.) To get the strokes the way you want, you may have to experiment with their position in the layer stack.
For the solid colors, you can clip solid fill adjustment layers to the shapes. This is nice because it makes experimenting with color very easy. Just double click the color fill to bring up color picker and swap out color.
Here's an example of what I mean. My layers palette UI will look different as I did this using Photoshop. Everything done however, would be done exactly the same way in Elements.
Edit: For the olive green solid color fills, I used selections of the arc shape to mask the area I wanted blocked in with a solid color. (Use black paint to hide color; white paint to show color) This is why it isn't in a clipping group. (You could but I didn't in the above example.