I have done this in the past, but not for a long time and do not remember how I did it. I am trying to put a photo in a PageMaker page that will have the opacity lowered to make a background. I then want to put some full color photos on top of that. I am using PhotoShop 7 on a Mac G4 OS 10.2.8. Every time I go into the layer toolbox the opacity settings are greyed out. I know there has to be a simple answer to this so forgive my boneheadedness and lack of memory.

Christo, you need to turn the background layer into a regular layer. Hold down the Alt key (I think that is Option key on a Mac) and double click the background layer which will become layer 0. Alternately you can duplicate the background layer and delete the orig background.
Regards, Murray

Thanks Murray. I tried dragging the background into the duplicate layer level and then deleted the background. It looked like it might work, although the checkerboard background seemed a bit heavy. I saved the image as a tiff, placed it in PageMaker, but got the full color image, not the 70%-75% image I was hoping for. I have been going through all my manuals and other books on PhotoShop 7, but cannot find anything.

It is really starting to tick me off as I know I have done this successfully in the past I just cannot remember how. I know it was not all that difficult. Thanks for your advice.

The checkboard pattern is there to indicate thet the layer has transparency. To get rid of it, just put a layer filled with solid white below the layers that you have reduced rhe opacity. I think you will then need to flatten the image prior to importing it into Pagemaker.
Regards,
Murray

I don't know if Photoshop 7 had this feature. I think it did. And it's been a while, but if I remember right, PageMaker had issues with transparency if the file was not saved as EPS.

Suggested work flow. (I'm assuming this is for four color process)

1. Save original PSD document as RGB
2. Convert to CMYK
3. Change "Background" layer to "Layer 0" to support the transparency
4. Set the Transparency for the % (typically brochure backgrounds are done at 20% or less depending on the amount of shadow in the photo. Just so it is light enough to read black text over shadow areas)
5. In the Photoshop HELP menu there is an option to "Export Transparent Image" (I think this is in Photoshop 7). Use this "wizzard" to generate the EPS file. If going to press, use the "press" option. At the EPS Options screen, choose a Preview (Mac is typically Macintosh 8bits/pixel) and check "Include Transfer Function".
6. Place the file in PM.

Thanks to all-it worked like a charm!