*waving arms above head* need help over here

Can I get in first? Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp, in decreasing order of cost.

"order of decreasing cost" makes more sense I think. >

Most people here use something like Photoshop, or Paintshop Pro, or The Gimp (which is free).
Image editors take a little time to learn, but there are lots of tutorial sites that will help get you started. If you already have an image editor that you like to use, then you are ready to start skinning. Just try and choose a simple program to start on, as some of them can be a little complex for beginners. Most people start out with "QuickNotes" or "Beatnik Clock" or something like that. Another good way to learn is to take a skin that you like, and look at all the components in a viewer like ACDSee, and see if you can replicate it. There is usually a file to be written too, usually called an ".ini" file, which tells the program where to put all the different bits. Just dive in, and if you get stuck, just come to this board and ask questions, someone will help out. They are mostly helpful friendly people here.
I hope this helps.

thanks you guys i appreciate the help. but can u tell me where to get the ACDSEE?

Oh and i guess i should've told you that this is for wb and dx, and i have photoshop and photoimpact

SkinStudio, part of the Object Desktop, will certainly help you in making skins for WindowBlinds. You can create the images themselves in Photoshop or PhotoImpact and then use SkinStudio to organize and customize the skin itself, or even just create a mock-up window that looks the way you want in Photoshop and let SkinStudio slice and dice it into the appropriate images.

Hope this helps.

thank you misterME

You don't really need ACDSee, although it is very convenient, (and I couldn't live without it!).
You could simply open the various skin parts in Photoshop to see what the skin comprises of.

thank you BoXXi i tried opening one in skin studio to see if that would help but it didnt make much sense, but then again being half asleep probably didnt help either. i guess u need to be able to actually see the screen to know what the heck your looking at.

There are a few free image viewers out there. You could try http://download.com for a start, they are sure to have one. I bet they even have a demo of ACDSee to download. Good luck!

OOPS! I think that link should be http://www.download.com Sorry.