Well Erk,hopefully others are following this rather long winded tutorial.  

Hows it coming FO?You have been mighty quiet.  

Hey Brain?
Could you repeat that all over again one more time from the beginning for me?
  
Just kiddin' you 'ole Brainster.  
Oh by the way, if she wants, there's a program that's suppose to be very close to being just like PhotoShop out there. It's even suppose to be able to use all of PhotoShop's Plugins.
And best of all, it's free!
You may of hear of it. It's called GIMP.
Acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program.
Here's the Link to the site from where it can be downloaded.
GIMP's Website

Hope she hasn't cut 'n' sliced more than just the images.

...you should know how SkinStudio can push one over the edge.

 Skinstudio works very well...until you try something stupid.(or something WB wont apply)   
You know...I've never given the gimp a try...PS7 here tho,so,well,you know.  

This makes a supurb tutorial   

Does anyone smell a computer meltdown

Nah, that was just my brain  

Ok, I've decided to use paint shop instead, b/c I find it easier. So do I need to have a certain amount of layers?

Ok here's what I got so far....

And thank you Skinned Alive I was using paint shop, but I downloaded that free program to try it out too!

Sorry I took so long ,I was busy skinning.  

You could use what you have,but I dont think your gonna like how the 2 middle sections look after you set your margins for tiling or stretching.

Middle areas should (in a perfect world)have some portion that looks the same no matter how large or small the start menu gets.
Stretching some images that have detail distorts them badly...tiling just repeats whatever is between the margins.

Your making progress...cut the image and try it...you will see what I mean...you can always change it if you dont like it.  

If you want to use the radioactive symbol in your start menu,move it to the lower portion of the places section and set your margins above the top edge of the symbol...that way it wont get distorted.  

The picture is worth a thousand words....the blue area in reply 102 is the part I have been fighting with...the left programs side and the top left edge are close but no cigar...Thanks IR for taking the time to do this...there are others watching

Anytime Alicia  



Ah heck TA, it's finally getting to the point of having to use reference numbers.
Next we'll be using articles, sections, and paragraphs.
Uhh look at Reply 1215, Article 7, Section 2, 3rd paragraph, and you'll see herein...