Chapter 1 - The Preparation

Part 1 - useful applications

First things first. Download ThemePark. It can be used for free indefinitely, but to get rid of the registration nag it costs $20.

ThemePark is designed for tight integration with Photoshop. You don't need the latest professional version to take advantage of this, Photoshop Elements or Photoshop 7 with the Scripting Plug-In will do. Of course you don't need any version of Photoshop at all, but you'll find the process more time consuming without it.

There are a few other free programs you might want to have around. guiKitty can export elements of a guiKit, and Manifest Destiny let's you quickly browse through a guiKit to see what elements have been modified.