What colordepth should I use? (Was: Need some help.)

[CrazyOwl]

Hi all. am new to creating skins and I whant to stard by making the simple thing saving the files and making them work in the game. my questions are.

1. is there a problem if I work a template in photoshop in a Mac (in work is what I use) and then putting in the game or it have to be in a photoshop PC?

2. what is the format for saving the file. I know is a bmp but what I dont know is the color and bits and all that stuff in the box when I chose bmp? abiusly is a RGB file. file format (exp chose windows or os/2)

Depth 1, 4, 8, 16, 24 32 bits. wish one?

compress (RLE) do I need to chk this or not

flip row order do I need to chk this or not?

do I need to chose something in advance mode?

Anyways I think this is the stuff that is holding me right now, cause I try onetime and the file dint appear in the menu. I did the file in photoshop in a mac and then pass it to windows to the file of the plane.

Anyways if anyone can help me on this, ill appretiate a lot.

TK and <S>

Crazyowl

[Barrakooda]

should be saved as a .bmp file, 8 bit & indexed.

Once saved it should be 1mb no more no less

[Serval]

1. It doesn't matter which program you use. as long as the final result is a Windows BMP 8 bit.
2. I suggest saving a 24 bit BMP and use the Bright program to convert it to 8 bit. This gives better results then let Photoshop do the job.
Another trick: Save you work as 256 color GIF reopen it and then save it as 8 bit BMP. This also looks better then 8 bit BMP directly from PS.

A note on the Bright plugin: Unfortunately it seems not to work on CS3 and also some newer PSP version. But the command prompt program still works fine, as does the Brighter Windows GUI for Bright.

[Barrakooda]

never used the bright program before serval, what does it do?

[Serval]

It converts 24 bit images to 8 bit. But very often with a better result then PS etc. do. That is why many people use it to do the job.