Looking for some help with photoshop. I have PS7. Finally trying to learn how to use the silly thing.

First project was to take a car and be able to manipulate its color through creating layers via the pen tool to seperate trim, windows, lights, etc to get it just down to the body so I can maniputate body color via hue and saturation. Each layer is made up of:
whole car to seperate out background
windshield
rear quarter window
marker lights
bumpers
etc

I have run into trouble in creating channel selections for each layer. Each time I click on a layer and try to save each selction as a new channel, it just saved the previous layer. e.g. first channle is saved as whole car, 2nd is saved as windshield, but then both whole car and windshield both show the exact same when you click on them: windshield.

Additionally, I would like to combine multiple layers into a single layer, but can't figure out if that is possible or how to do it.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

I guess no Photoshop gurus here. So here're a few youtube videos to help us all learn photoshop, or at least get a good laugh out of learning: You Suck At Photoshop series.

Lesson #1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_X5uR7VC4M
Lesson #2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXeZ0s8DXZ0
Lesson #3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWn0lxRNqos
Lesson #4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNfBF2xvhaE
Lesson #5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-8hQh6hdnI
...and they just keep going and going and going...

unfortunately, I haven't found one that addresses the reason I suck at photoshop....bummer...

Sorry, I know how to edit photos using a free alternative to Photoshop, but I haven't used Photoshop itself very much

Try emailing Jeremy (flyboy007@earthlink.net). He has photoshop but is buried in school work...but give him a shout...