Struggling with a Photoshop basic function, copy & paste a selection

[RedDwarf4Ever]

Hello
until a few months ago, I was feeling fairly competent with Photoshop, was repairing old photos using clone tool content aware fill etc. but I tried some thing basic today, and just can’t get my head around it. I need to copy a section of photo, a border, mirror it, paste to a different place on the same image, and adjust it to look right. My first attempts kept saying the selection was empty, then when I flattened the image ( no idea if that was the right thing to do, I could copy and paste, but couldn’t see where the selection was ?
Could someone kindly give me the steps to achieve this ? I realise for most of you it’s like teaching grandma to suck eggs, but would like to get to where I was before. Secondly, is there a, preferably free, tutorial, to go over the basics such as this, thanks in advance.

 

[thebestcpu]

HI @RedDwarf4Ever
Here is the simplest way I know
Make the selection with the marching ants.
The use the keyboard shortcut Cmd+J (Cntl+J on PCs) and that will copy that selection to the Layer above
Use the command Edit > Transform > Flop Horizontal (or Flip Vertical if you need that)
Press the keyboard shortcut V (which opens the move tool)
Drag the selected piece (with mouse, trackpad, arrow keys, etc) in the new Layer to where you need the mirrored selection to go.
Hope that gets you going
John Wheeler

For instant tutorials you can google for a Youtube video on the topic or go to helpx.adobe.com which is an online reference manual

 

[RedDwarf4Ever]

Thank you, will give that a try

 

[nurgle]

when it sys "Your Selection is empty" generally mean that you are trying to select form an area where their is no pickles, so so you are working in a layer above or below the layers you want to copy.

check but poking the eye (turning off the layer, or on) on each layer in turn till you find the one you want to copy from.

Regards, Sandy