Check out the tutorials at Skinartistry. WWW Link You'll have to sign up, but it's free. The community is very helpful and has a place to upload works in progress for help.

The tutorials can be downloaded and are done in separate steps, taking you through each agonizing, frustrating little step. lol. There is also a skin you can download and work off of, to aid with the visual assist.

Didn't I see you post awhile back that you might make a windowblind for others
to ' Pimp ' ( re-skin ) to get familar with Skin studio ? Do you still have that in future plans ?

I did the logon version first to test the waters...not one person used it...but I did put the start menu .psd in the graphics section.  

well thanx alot Po' and I.R. ...the sites really helped alot and i'm giong to watch the tutorials and whatnot and after a short while you should se some posting by me going on...once again thanx for all your help.

yes...good skinning to ya  

Best advice I can give you is to sit down, and dig in for the long haul.

Skinning windows is a fairly long and complicated process and although tutorials can be helpful its no substitute for just trial and erroring your way through it.

It may be the long way around but its the best way and much more fulfilling when it all starts to come together.

Keep on skinning !!!

oh yeah and i forgot to metion...how do i fix the programs on the left side from going way up where i can't see them fully....and i'm using skin studio 6 Pro in case you can't see that....thanx again

^^ ...Nice fella

...do as he says.

You'll learn a lot 

ok I.R. iwill send right now...than you so much  

OK...yes,its a mess.  

At first glance...the gradient issue...you have a setting in the user pane called pre-multiplied alpha...delete it.Its messing up your translucency.

Your sizes for all the images are different from your actual graphic sizes(as in userpane is set at 9 picels tall and the image is 11 pixels tall)This causes images to get distorted.Height setting should ideally match graphic height.(unless you have some real reason for an image to be stretched or squished)

Width settings are trickier unless you draw the start menu exactly as wide as you really want it.I cant tell if you wanted it wider than drawn or you needed it to grow width wise.If you wanted it wider you have to cut the whole start menu image judiciously so that you have proper control over where each section is tiled or stretched.

Content margins are off...and all sections were set to stretch even tho the image has lots of textures...usually textures are tiled.(the exception here being the places image which currently needs to do both...you need to recut the whole menu with attention paid to ease of tiling and stretching

For the places side,you may need to tile edges and strech center part.

By not using the actual image sizes for your size settings you have made a start menu that is nearly impossible to make all the pieces fit properly.  

Why you cut the user pane just off the top I cant say...the design looks like you should have included the top green area.(especially since you dont want icons going up in there.  

My advice in cutting is to use the natural cutting lines in your image as a whole...exact bottom of the userpane,exact top of the logoff area,exact center or 1 edge between the progs/places vertical seperator.

Something to remember...an image can be set to stretch while its edges within the sizing margins can be tiled if needed.

You need to pay cloer attention to your sizing margins...lots of alignment issues are being caused by parts of the images being distorted because the havnt been included within the margins.  

Dont ,we all started right where you are at.Like vStyler said,trial and error(with the occasional success)go a long way...looking how other skins are done will answer a lot of questions.