help, everytime i hit the rectangle icon and make a rectangle, the whole board turns

white or whatever color and everything the rectangle is over disappears and is overlapped by the shape, i cant get rid of the shape, how do i get my photo back?

I think what the problem is, is that you are working on one layer. Photoshop allows you to place elements on different layers so you can manipulate them seperately.

What you want to do, is before you make the rectangle, create a new layer and make the rectangle on that layer. see the image...