First you need to make the mask. With this graphic, that will be pretty easy since the background is white. To make the mask:

1. Open the rose graphic and Duplicate your graphic (Shift D).

2. Working from the duplicate, select the white background with the magic wand, no feather. Or, use Selections|Select All, Selections|Modify|Transparent color with background color set to white.

3. Invert your selection and save to the Alpha Channel (Selections|Save to Alpha Channel).

4. Invert the selection again, and set feather to 1 (Selections|Modify|Feather).

5. Fill the background with black. Keep filling as long as you see white pixels around the edge of the graphic (hint, hide the marquee to see how you are doing Shift CTRL M, or just deselect CTRL D then hit the undo button which will reset the selection).

   

6. Once you have a black background with very few pixels of white showing, deselect.

7. Load your selection from the Alpha Channel (Selections|Load from Alpha Channel). Fill with white. You now have your mask.

   
   
   
   

8. Save this as "RoseMask.jpg". You need to save your mask as a jpg in 16 million colors so that you will be able to load the mask into the rose graphic.

Now it's time to use your mask:

1. Make another copy of your rose graphic.

2. Promote the rose graphic to a layer (Right click on the layer that says "Background" and choose "Promote to Layer). Right click on the layer again and choose "Properties". Name this layer "Rose".

3. Create a new layer (click in the New Layer box in the lower left corner of the layers palette) and name it Background. Drag under the Rose layer.

4. Create another new layer and name this "Fill". Position this layer between Background and Rose.

5. Click on the "Fill" layer and flood fill with black (you won't see this yet because the rose with the white background is on top).

6. Click on the rose layer.

7. Make sure your "RoseMask.jpg" is open and on your desktop. Now you are going to load your mask into the Rose layer. To do this choose Masks|New|From Image. From the Source Window drop down list choose your RoseMask.jpg. If it is not already checked, check the "Source Luminance" box. Make sure "Invert Mask" is not checked. Your graphic should now look like the graphic below:

   

   Since your fill layer is black, it allows you to see that there are still white pixels around the edge of the rose. I always work with a fairly dark fill color, since this will expose those nasty white pixels.

8. To get rid of those white pixels, first save your mask to an Alpha Channel (Masks|Save to Alpha Channel). Hint: You know you have a mask loaded in a layer when you see an asterisk next to the layer name.

9. Choose Masks and click on Edit and View Through Mask.

10. Click on the rose with the Magic Wand to select the rose.

11. Choose Masks|Delete. When it asks you if you want to merge the mask with the layer, say yes! This will permanently make the area around the rose transparent so the fill layer can show through.

12. Now we need to get rid of those pesky white pixels remaining. You should still have your rose selected (if you don't, choose Selections|Load from Alpha Channel and choose your mask).

13. Choose Selections|Modify|Feather and set to a feather of 1. Invert your selection and hit delete a few times. You'll see those white pixels disappear.

14. If there are still a few left, deselect and zoom in on your graphic a few times. Choose the "Eraser" tool. Click on the white pixels with the eraser tool.

Your rose should be looking pretty good by now. Now, it's time for the finishing touches:

1. Click on your "Fill" layer and flood fill with whatever background color or texture you want. I filled mine with wood.

2. The reason for the "Background" layer being under the "Fill" layer is so that you can use the opacity slider on the fill layer. My wood was a little too dark so I reduced the opacity somewhat. If you don't have the white "Background" layer under the fill layer, you will start seeing the transparent grid show through as you lower the opacity. This makes it hard to judge if you have your opacity at the right level.

   

1. Create a new layer, name it "Shadow" and place it between Fill and Rose or on the top layer.

2. Turn off the Rose layer (click on the "Layer Visibility Toggle" to the right of the layer name).

3. Load your selection (Selections|Load from Alpha Channel).

4. Now you are going to make the drop shadow. But, if you apply a drop shadow to the current selection, you will get annoying white pixels around the edge again. To prevent this contract your selection (Selections|Modify|Contract) by 1-2. Then apply the drop shadow. Make the opacity 100% since you can reduce the opacity with the slider. Since you contracted your selection, you probably want to make the offset 1 pixel larger than you normally would. My drop shadow is offset by 5, with a blur of 6.

5. Deselect your shadow.

6. Apply a Gaussian Blur set to 1 (this further smoothes the edges of the shadow).

7. Turn on your rose again and you should have a picture that looks like this:

   

You can now save the graphic in its layered format (as a .psp extension, the default under "Save"), and/or you can save it as a jpg (File|Save A Copy). When you save it as a jpg, Paint Shop Pro will flatten the image for you.

Following is what my layers panel looked like when I was done with the graphic:

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