Thursday, December 15, 2011

How to Make a Blog Background With Gimp

Blog Backgrounds - How to Make Your Own Blog Background

By Deborah Erickson


I have been using blog skins from various websites to decorate my blog, so I thought it would be fun to create my own. Here are the steps to creating your own blog background.
1. Download a photoshop type program. One that worked for me is Gimp and it is free.
2. First create a new project and set the image size at 1650x1000 pixels.
3. I also opened the layer window. If you are using Gimp you can find this window under the heading window, dockable dialogue, and layer.
4. Select a background color for your blog center and paint the whole background this color.
5. Open the other pictures or images you want to use for side bars in your blog background. Then crop the pictures to the dimensions of 450x1000 pixels
6. I then pasted my images onto my colored background. The middle section of your blog background needs to be about around 665 pixels, so you will be able to read your text on your blog.
6. The most tricky part is creating layers. Everytime you paste a new image onto your background you need to hit the layer button on the toolbar and create a new layer, so you can resize this image or move it without moving the whole page. You can view all you layers in the layers window, so it will be easy to navigate between layers if you need to.
7. Then add embellishments and borders. Be creative. For my border I cut out an image from one of my pictures and then repeated the image with copy and paste.
8. Save your blog background in gimp under file extension.xcf so you will be able to edit later if you need to.
9. After saving your photo in gimp you have to save the picture again under file extension.jpeg, so the picture will be able to be seen on your blog.
10. Next create an account at photobucket.com. This is another free service.
11. Upload your picture on to their server and click the Save & Get Links button.
12. Under the picture there are four links, Copy the info from the directlink and
paste the info in notepad or word you are going to need it in a minute.
13. Go to your blogger page click customize, Pick New Template
14. Select Minima, which is the first option.
15. Find Edit HTML. This is the trick part so make sure you follow the directions exactly.
16. Open the code and look for the information that looks exactly like this. Delete the code below.

body {
background:$bgcolor;
margin:0;
color:$textcolor;
font:x-small Georgia Serif;
font-size/* */:/**/small;
font-size: /**/small;
text-align: center;
}

17. In place of the code paste the following code. Place your direct link where it says paste your photo bucket direct link here.
body {
background:$bgcolor;
background-image: url('paste your photo bucket directlink here. ');
background-position: center;
background-repeat:no-repeat;
background-attachment: fixed;
margin:0;
color:$textcolor;
font:x-small Georgia Serif;
font-size/* */:/**/small;
font-size: /**/small;
}

18. Save and view Blog
Congratulations! You have a customized blog.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Deborah_Erickson

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