Picture Manager; bacground watermark HELP?

[skylitetent]

I am trying to make a birthday card for a friend. How do I take a photo
convert it to a soft background watermark so II can place a greeting on it as
the foreground
Thanks

[Mary Sauer]

What program are you planning to use to create your card? If you are using an
Office application, there is wash-out in the picture options. Also watermark
options in Microsoft Word. You can open the image in a Paint program and
experiment with the brightness and contrast controls.
Picture Manager is not a good program for editing, MS Paint is better.
These programs are free:
www.getpaint.net
www.irfanview.com, it is helpful to get Irfanview's plug-ins.