Materials you'll need;
a.) Photoshop or Paintshop Pro
b.) Button Extractor

notes

• All images will need to be saved as bitmaps (.bmp)
• In WinAMP, press the F5 key whenever you want see the changes you have made to a skin.
• Make a new folder for each winamp skin.

Steps

1.) Make the top part of the winamp skin that will be the eqmain and main after you cut it in half in photoshop or PSP.For this image, your file will need to be the same height and width as this default winamp image:
width: 275 pixels, height: 232 pixels

All files will need to be saved in bitmap form. In Photoshop, go to "save as" and choose bitmap in the dropdown menu.You will need to cut this image in half into a main.bmp and an eqmain.bmp. Here is the example sizes of those:

Main.bmp
width: 275 pixels, height: 116 pixels

Eqmain.bmp
width: 275 pixels, height: 116 pixels

2.) Next step after you have cut the top part into the eqmain and main sectionsand saved those in bitmap form, this is where you will need to download Button Extractor to cut up the skin into the parts that are needed in the skin.

For further information on how to work this simple program, follow the help file that is included in the zip folder.

noteSometimes with the button extractor it misaligns the balance.bmp or Shufrep.bmp bitmap by a pixel. So just select the pattern and move it one pixel to the right.

3.) After you have the skin cut into the necessary pieces, you will have to re-open each part in Photoshop and cut out the area that has the image in it and paste it in the empty sections of the pattern.The button extractor doesn't do all the work. An example here is the shufrep.bmp:

On sections like the volume and balance you can crop the bitmap's height down from 433 to 425 to make smaller controls. Volume, Posbar (I cut this one down from 10px to 3px), balance are the three I normally crop smaller.

4.) For the playlist, it's easiest to open one from the default winamp skin and use that as a template to go over:
width: 280 pixels, height: 186 pixels

I suggest doing it once, and saving it as a template for future ones so it doesn't take as long the second, third, etc. times.

This file will need to be saved as Pledit.bmp

5.) Now you will to make the numbers.bmp, text.bmp, and playpaus.bmp files:
numbers.bmp
width: 99 pixels, height: 13 pixels

text.bmp
width: 155 pixels, height: 18 pixels

playpaus.bmp
width: 42 pixels, height: 9 pixels

6.) Finally add in the pledit.txt, readme.txt and viscolor.txt into the folder of the winamp skin you're making. Please read the information provided by Winamp.com for what everything means in these files. Although, I suggest copying those from another winamp to save your time since all winamp skins need the same things and they're all the same (without stealing anyone's work).

You'll need to adjust the colors of each bitmap in photoshop so it matches your skin.

extras If you want to customise the cursor using a cursor program, the method for that is here.And, if you want to customise the video player, see here for further information.

Those are the steps, in a simplified form. It takes a while, but once you make a few it becomes easier and faster.

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