This will (hopefully) show how you can make a preview for your theme with Paint Shop Pro 9.
In this example I will make a preview for a K800-theme. But the process is the same for any SE-theme.

When the theme is done in the theme creator, click the preview-button and the preview pops up:


The whole preview won't fit the screen so we have to do this in stages.

We start by aligning the preview-window so we get the first 8-10 screens to fit your monitor.

Hit "print screen" on your keyboard.

Now open Paint Shop Pro and hit ctrl+v to paste into a new image.
We will then select the part we want to use for the preview.
In this example I will use the 8 screens which are selected using the selection tool:

Hit ctrl+c to copy the selection and then ctrl+v to paste as a new image:

Now we will remove the background to be able to set our own background later.

We will use the magic wand for this:

Just make sure to use a very low tolerance setting for this, or else parts of your screens will be included in the selection and we don't want that!
I used these settings:

Click anywhere on the background and you get this:

Now hit delete on your keyboard and you should have this:

If you get a color instead of the transparent background when pressing delete you have to promote background layer.
So without removing the selection, go here:

After you've done that, hit delete again and you will have a transparent background.

Now we just need to remove the text under the screens. Use the selection tool again:

After the selection is done, hit delete.
We have now cleared the background but now we need some more space to work in so we'll adjust the canvas size:

So we'll make the image canvas bigger. But how much bigger? Well, it depends on how we want our preview to look.
Before we know how big we want it, first we have to know how big it is right now.
At the bottom right of our PSP-window we see all we need to know:

My image is 1001x676 pixels and I will only adjust the height for now:

I enter 1001 in width for it to stay the same and I will increase the height to 1100.

I want the added space to be below my existing image so I click the "up-arrow" in the "placement"-settings.
I can then see how much space I will get and 424 pixels at the bottom will be just fine. Hit OK and you should have this:

We return to the theme creator. We open the preview-window again and scroll down to show the last screens:

We do the same all over again. Hit "print screen" on the keyboard, go back to PSP and hit ctrl+v to paste as new image.
we will now pick two screens from this image to add to our preview-image.
I make the selection for the first screen with the selection tool:

Get the selection exactly! Zoom in on the image with the scroll-wheel on your mouse and start at the top-left
of the screen you want and make the selection moving down to the lower right corner of your selected screen.
And you should have it like in the image above.

Hit ctrl+c to copy the selection.

Don't close the image from the theme creator just yet. We want one more screen from it in a while, so let it sit in the background.

Go back to your preview-image and hit ctrl+e to paste as a floating selection:

Now move the selected screen to the place you want it.

Return to the image from the theme creator and select
another screen. I picked this one:

Same again, hit ctrl+c then return to the preview-image
and hit ctrl+e to paste as a floating selection:

Now position this screen where you want it and see to it that you get everything symmetrical and aligned right.

We now have all that we want from the theme creator and now we will add some background.
First we need to adjust where the screens appear in the image. So we "select all":

Now we can just drag everything where we want it and I will just center it a bit:

Now I notice we will need some space to the left and right...
So we need to adjust the canvas size again:

The width and height we entered before is preset so all I need to do now is set how much space I want
for the sides, so I will hit the center-mark in "placement" and just add 10 pixels left and right:

It will give you this:

Now we start with the background.
I will add one image and one gradient for the background.
You can of course skip the image and just go with a plain background.

So we create a new raster layer:

Just OK the screen that follows.

I start off with adding the image:

Don't mind that it sits ontop at the moment, we will fix that later.

Add a new layer:

Just OK the screen that follows.

I will now use the fill tool and pick a simple gradient, but you can use anything really.
You will have something like this:

Now we have three layers:
One layer with the theme-screens.
One layer with the Bio-hazard logo.
One layer with the gradient.

Now we just have to change the order for the layers. I want the gradient at the bottom.
The Bio-hazard logo ontop of the gradient and the theme-screens ontop of everything.

So we turn to the layers-box:

Now we can just drag the gradient layer (Raster 3) to the bottom and the Bio-hazard layer (Raster 2) to the middle.
This will be the result:

Now we will add a drop shadow to the theme-screens:

First click on "Raster 1" (theme-screens) to make it active:

Now "select all":

Now click anywhere in the image and you will have this:

You can add a new layer at this stage so the drop shadow will have its very own layer.
If you don't, the shadow and the theme-screens will be bonded in the same layer.
Needless to say, I was too lazy to create a new layer.. :-)

Now we can add the shadow:

I used these settings:

With the shadow set now we just need to make the Bio-hazard logo more faded,
and to do that we will have to use the slider next to "Raster 2":

The result will be this:

All done! If you want to keep the image with the layer intact, save it as "something.pspimage".
But to use it at M9 we have to save it as png, so save it as "something.png"

Now go to imageshack.us, upload the file and you will be presented a few options,

Copy the link at the bottom (direct-link to image).

Now go to M9. Open a/your thread in the SE-section, post a reply and to show your preview,
click the [IMG] button and paste the image-link in the box that opens.

It may seem like a lot of work when you first go through this tutorial, but once you've done it
a few times it will only take a few minutes of your time!


/dr_megabyte @ mobile9.com