Working with photoshop?

Question

I'm trying to learn some photoshop basics so i browsed the net for some tutorials. there seemed to be some good ones but i'm confused about some stuff so i want to ask a couple of questions:

can i use layers to merge two different image files, say image 1 is a scenic picture and image 2 is the picture of a specific subject, can i make image 1 the background of image 2? If yes, how?

also

i opened a file, created a new layer and it shows on the layers palette. but when i click on the new layer, the original picture remains and the new layer won't come up even after i double clicked it. I managed to do it before accidentally but i can't remember how that happened..

i was trying to remove an object from a picture and followed the steps on a tutorial. what i did was:

chose pen tool

surrounded the object with those points path thingy

cliked on the original path

right clicked inside it

made a selection

pressed ok

clicked delete

i manage to follow the steps until delete but when i hit delete, it says the task can not be completed because the content of the layer is not directly editable.

why?

i know this might sound pretty basic or stupid to some but i'm just trying to learn some new stuff so i hope someone would be kind enough to help.

Answer 1

Q1: If image 1 is a background, it should be "underneath" image 2. Use the eraser tool to remove any background on image two to isolate the object from it's picture (holding shift + using the magic wand tool to select the background-only makes this easier).

Q2: Was layer 2 above the opened image? It either didn't show up or there wasn't anything on the layer; that's my guess. New layers are completely empty; like a transparent piece of paper put over (or under) the picture.

Q3: I prefer to use the magic wand selection method I explained above to precisely cut pieces out of an image. I'm not familiar with the pen tool because I don't use it, sorry.