How To Create A Userbar In Jasc Paint Shop Pro


What Are Userbars?

Userbars are rectangular images that are found in most people's signatures. Generally, they depict a product's logo on the left hand side and some text on the right. Here are some examples:




Many of these can be downloaded for free at sites like userbars.com but in this tut, I'll show you how to make a simple Paint Shop Pro Addict userbar.

This tutorial assumes you know very little about Paint Shop Pro 9. Once you've opened PSP, you can begin...

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1. Create A New Image
   
   To do this, press Ctrl + N Set the width of the image to 350px and the height to 20px. Change the colour depth to 16 million colours and make the background colour transparent by checking the Raster Background box and checking the Transparent box. Your screen should look something like this:
   
   
   
   Now click okay.
   
   
2. Add the background
   
   The backgrounds of userbars are usually gradients. I'm going to create a yellow and red gradient as that is the colour of the Paint Shop Pro 9 logo. If you know how to add a gradient background, skip onto point 3, otherwise carry on.
   1. Double click on one of the colours in the Materials section. Unless you moved it, it should be near the top right hand corner of the application.
   2. Click on the Gradient tab and then the Edit button. Your screen should look something LIKE this:
      
      
   3. Now click the New button on the top right hand corner of active window. Enter a name such as Paint Shop Pro Colours.
   4. Next, you should click on Button A (as shown in Figure 1 below) and then on Button B. A colour picker comes up. I used html colour #A74933. You can put this combination of letters and numbers next to the HTML: box. Press OK.
      
      Figure 1:
      
   5. Then click on Button C and Button B and input a new colour. I used html colour #FACC91. Press OK.
   6. If you want to add a new "button", click anywhere along Strip A. To change the colour, repeat the process used earlier in points 2d and 2e.
   7. Press Close and then it should prompt you to save the changes you've made. Click Yes.
   8. Your screen should resemble this:
      
      
      
      The lightest colour should, idealistically, be on the top. If it isn't, adjust the angle until it is. Note that the select Style of gradient is the one furthest to the left. Press okay.
   9. The gradient you just added should be selected in the Materials panel. Click it once again.
   10. On the left hand side of the application, you should find a picture of a dripping paint tin (). This is the fill tool. If you cannot find it then just press the F key on your keyboard. Click on it and then click on your image. It should look like this:
       
       
3. Adding the logo
   
   To do this, maximise Paint Shop Pro and press the [PrtSc] aka the print screen key on your keyboard. Press Ctrl + V to paste the image.
   
   At the top left of the image, you should see the paint shop pro 9 logo. Press the S key the activate the selection tool and select the logo. Use Ctrl + C to copy it and Ctrl + V to paste it as a new image.
   
   Under the Overview panel, press the magnifying glass with the plus sign in it until the image takes up all of the window. On my computer, that's 3500%.
   
   
   
   Click on the arrow next to the dashed square on the left panel and select the image which looks like a lasso. This is known as the Freehand Selection Tool.
   
   
   
   Now, this is the hard part. The background of your title bar is a particular colour. Using the selection tool, select every part of that image except all instances of that colour thus selecting the logo with a transparent background. My title bar's background colour is a deep red so I'd select this:
   
   
   
   Then, once you've completed this, press Ctrl + X. Minimize that image and restore the image you made the gradient on. Press Ctrl + L to paste a new layer. Move the tiny icon so that the left of it is about 20px in from the left of your 350x20 image. You can tell that it is 20px in because the bottom right hand side of the status bar will show x: 20px when you put your mouse over the left of the icon. You should have this:
   
   
   
4. Adding the text
   
   For this many people use the Visitor TT1 BRK font available for download, here.
   
   To add the text, press T on your keyboard. Then, anywhere on your 350x20 image, press the left mouse button once. Type Paint Shop Pro 9 Addict. Highlight that text and at the top of the application you should see a font dropdown menu, rather like the one in word. Adjust the font to your choice and change the size to 10pt. Further along the right of these menus, you should see a dropdown menu which says Anti Alias. Change it to Sharp. Click Apply.
   
   Right click on your text and select Properties. Uncheck the box which says Stroke, if not done already. Click on the coloured box under Fill and a colour chooser should come up. Most userbars either have black and white text. Change the colour to the one you desire and press OK.
   
   Move the text so that the right hand side of your text is about 335px in from the left and is vertically aligned in the centre. You should now have this:
   
   
   
5. Finishing Touches
   
   Finally add a border. To do this go to Image --> Add Borders. Click OK if an alert appears prompting you to flatten the image layers.
   
   Click on the coloured square. Change the colour to black and click Okay. Select Pixels in the dropdown menu on the top left of the active window and change the width of every side of the border (top, bottom, left and right) to 1. Click Okay.

There you have it! Your very own basic userbar. Many userbars have diagonal lines in them and white, elliptic transparent parts. You can add those as well.

Amazing and very good tutorial.. I have newer seen such cool thing how to make but thanks to you I'll now be able to make such myself .. And I think the text on Userbar need some diffrent pixelfont.. but thats everyones own choice .. Nice tutorial helped a lot ..

for those who want userbar... faster..

create your own here.. www.userbarmaker.com << very usefull

intresting. i havent actualy heard of these things before but i think il make some soon.

That is how you make it. Can you do that with the Gimp program? I was wondering how people made those cool Gmail bars. Now I know. I like those because I would like to make some for my site and see if people would put them at the bottom of their pages.

Oh, and does this work well if you can't choose your resolution? Hey thanks a bunch.

1. Probably. I don't have the GIMP so I wouldn't know. As long as it can deal width gradients and has a good selection tool then it can.

2. Yes

I believe this is a good tutorial for further customization of userbars.
For an easier way to make an userbar, go to http://userbarmakers.com. They offer an abundance of pre-made userbars.

wild: I think any graphics program (except Paint) will have the tools and features to help you make your custom-made userbars...of course, there are the online generators if you want it quickly.