One of the hardest things to do when creating a DesktopX theme is to get the inspiration to start.

The first time I visited the 'breed' website I was struck by the look which was created by Goochtek. I immediately wanted to create a DesktopX theme based on the site.

The first thing I did was get permission to do so. Many artists spend a huge amount of time and effort creating their work, and some make a living this way.

If you want to create a site that is based on another person's work you should get permission to use it and must respect their wishes if they say no.

putting building the different implications:

Bitmaps (BMP) do not have transparency by default, but can mimic transparency by using 'magic pink' pixels.

Icon (ICO) files are actually bitmaps but typically of small size and limited colour depth. If your source graphic is an ICO file, the 'Icon Size' option will be available. By default the icon will be displayed at a size of 32x32 pixels, but here you can quickly resize the image, without using the advanced options.

PNG files have the most flexibility in their native format because they have transparency built in, but fewer applications can save files in this format.

Having got permission I saved the webpage to my hard drive and extracted all the source graphics and threw them into Photoshop where I could put the individual images together.

I spend a LOT of time removing the background to allow transparent areas, and added a few 3D effects and drop shadows, just to add my personal interpretation to Goochtek's work. Obviously this required a bit more approval from Goochtek.

Once this was done I could extract the various components of the image to start building my theme.

I chose to save the majority as PNG files to maintain the transparency and drop shadow that I had created, which required a bit of work in Fireworks too.

 

 

When you have worked through the tutorial you will have a theme that looks great, and has most of the functionality you could wish for. It there's anything else you want it to do let me know!

Before I forget, make sure you visit the breed website for yourself.