[thelist] Newbie Graphic Manipulation Question

[Luther, Ron]

Hi Gang,

<insert cliche image of a lightbulb suddenly lighting over my head />    ;-)

It dawned on me this morning that I've been banging my head against the wall for nothing and that
some of you could *easily* give me some serious help, direction, and pointers in an area where I
have pretty much non-existent expertise .... graphic image manipulation.

This is not for work -- no deadlines -- no money on the table -- no rush -- it's just for my personal efforts.


The n00B problem/question:    How do I make a 'sandwich'?

Let's say I've scanned in a nice portrait image that has a crappy background.
Let's say I have a second image I took with my digital camera of a nice sunset.
How do I marry those up and create a nice portrait image that uses the sunset as a background?


Unreasonable Limitations:

(1) I'm not gonna spend a zillion $$ on software I don't have.
(2) I don't have Photoshop.

I do have the following laying around and would really appreciate some ideas on how these could be
used to make a 'sandwich':

(a) The Gimp.  I know it is powerful.  I know it can do the job. But I have wrestled with the dang thing
for hours and barely managed to _survive_ ONE of the tutorials.  Basically, I have zero proficiency
using this bugger.

(b) Irfanview.  I don't know what version - probably old.  I use this to view slideshows of my scanned
and digital images.  I hear you can do other things with it - but I haven't.

(c) Fireworks.  I have a very old version - probably "3".  I use it for resizing images, cropping images, and
exporting scans to jpg.

(d) Paint Shop Pro.  I _think_ I may have a very very old version of Jasc PSP.  I'm not sure I've ever used
it for anything.


Pointers appreciated!

Thanks,

RonL.
(Hey!  We _said_ we wanted more graphics-oriented threads, right?)