Help!!!!, How do you make skins? Options

[japanese_monk1]

How do i make a new skin?

[*kryogenix*]

don't double post.

to make skins, choose a subject on what you'll make the skin on. plan out a design then code it with html/css. make some images and you're done

[Nay]

I'm having sometime so I thought I'd go somewhat in depth on this. Most people tend to stick a banner and call it done, but really. Just a banner isn't even close to a good skin.

First off you'd have to decide on what you like. Most people tend to go "oh, that's nice, i think I'll do it too". That's called trendwhoring (going with the 'trend'). But imho, you should really start to stick outside the trend and add some originality. I know, you could be new to all of this but if you develop the habbit from an early stage in your designing life, you'd be well off with it.

After you've thought of something, it's good to actually draw it out on rough pieces of paper. I actually have my mom bring back one sided papers from her office. She was getting pissed with the amount of papers I use. Well thank god she's not an enviromentalist .

After drawing, add the widths, heights, colors, notes and other things onto the drawing. Then start to ponder around Photoshop or whatever program that you use. Every time you make a change, zoom out to 100%, press F twice to get it full screen and look. Just stop and look. Ask yourself, is it good? Do the colors match? Is the sides too crispy? and other things you'd want to get the skin to perfection.

When you're done, try to hue/saturate the layout. Maybe a different color scheme might do (hey, you'll never know). Find the perfect color. Keep ctrl + alt + z after every change of color. It's easier to get lost if you don't.

Then comes the html/css part. I've never used Photoshop's premade HTML generator for what matters. It's full of crap. Quite outdated. The best way is to flatten the image, copy it entirely, then paste it in a new document. Close the original one. Don't save changes. Discarding the layers is praticly destroying for everything you've worked for.

In the new document, start to draw guides and crop each one out with the marquee tool. Make a new image, save it. Then code the HTML/CSS.

When coding, you'd want to keep indenting and notes here and there so when you want to re-look at it, you'll know what you were trying to do.

Hope that helps. Don't follow step for step for what I said. Think outside the box.

-Nay