We know that through digital means we can alter and shape images to improve them. At times we can even take a throw away image and make an acceptable picture from it.

However, still one of the best ways is to have the idea for the finished image at the picture taking stage. We spotted this lady framing up her shots of the London Eye and decided to use her to provide added impact to our picture.

We decided to place the lady outside of our picture frame, which meant we needed a shot of the London Eye too.

Look around for unusual viewpoints, but keep in mind that the two images have to fit together later when you come to spin the digital magic.

Your first task is to lift your portrait from the background and there are many ways of doing this. Try using the magic wand tool and by holding the Shift key down gradually build up your selection until you have completed the whole of your subject. Remember that double clicking the magic wand tool icon brings up a palette (below) where you can decide on the degree of tolerance.

This can be very useful in these situations. Remember also that you can switch from the magic wand to the lasso tool and holding the shift key gather up those pixels that has escaped the magic wand.

With your selection complete choose feather from the select menu and if you are working with a file from a digital camera choose a feather radius of 1-2 pixels. Use the shortcut keys of Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy your selection to a new layer. Photoshop will do this for you automatically as shown below. F7 is the shortcut key to bring up the layers palette.

Drop the original layer in the bin and just retain the transparent one.

Save your work regularly and with different file names if you have the space so that you can always go back to any previous state. Don't depend on the history palette alone.

Bring your other image on screen and change the name of the thumbnail in the layers palette to one of your choice. What you call it isn't important, but the default name background must be changed or Photoshop cannot make a transparency. Create room around your London Eye by choosing canvas size from the image menu. Increase the width and height to suit your image and alter the position of it within the new picture area ready to take your lady photographer.

With both your London Eye, the transparency of the lady photographer and your layers palette on screen, drag the thumbnail of your lady into the other image.

You can now move the lady into position and alter the scale of her by selecting Transform - Scale from the Edit menu as shown below.

Create a new blank layer by clicking the centre icon in the layers palette and drag that to the bottom of your stack. You can now choose whatever background colour you feel is appropriate, but don't forget to add a little monochrome noise from the filter menu. About 3 pixels are sufficient for a digital camera file.

We chose to stay with a blue background and added a thin white line around just the London Eye. There is a simple little process for doing this, but save your layered composition first.

Select your London Eye and click in the border area with the magic wand. Fill the area with white and then choose contract from the select menu. Choose 2-3 pixels and you will see your selection move away from the edge. Hit Ctrl+X, which is the shortcut for the cut command and you, will be left with a thin line.

You can create this line on a new blank layer by creating the layer after the selection. The advantage is that you then have control of the opacity and colour of your line. Other additions could be a drop shadow on the lady, which you can create easily in Photoshop via layers-effects-drop shadow.

Try to visualise your image before you take the shots, it nearly always works the best.