Why are my downloads see-through?

[mamabear72]

I downloaded some free papers & flowers from the web and when I try to add them to my page they look fine in the first screen but then when their added to the page they're see through/transparent. When I check the transparency/opauge
slider it's slid all the way towards opauge.

Also I downloaded a grey "mask?" template, it's a page contest and when I open it in the begening when I'm choosing a blank page/template it comes up fine as a background but I'm not able to double click and change the "picture" or box...do I have to retreive a scrap and size it to fit in the grey box? And since there is writing on the "mask/template" but it doesn't look like it has layers in my SM system how will I make sure my paper goes behind the wording?

To all of you that have helped me Thank you so much!
There's so much to learn, I feel a bit overwhelemed with using anything other than what came on my SM disk

Thank you

[crops2dawn]

Hey Mamabear! I am not sure if I can help ya, but I'll sure give it a try, first off- the stuff you downloaded, is it in a Jpeg form, or a png?? Not sure why that is happening to ya, it could just be a transparent background???
second part..did you download the mask template here?? If not the only way to work on those mask are with a different program, I dont think (and I could be totally wrong) you can use the mask templates from other sites. You have to use a PSP or PSE one of those types. I hope someone else can help out here. I dont use masks from other places cause I dont know how to do them in my PSE (YET)