AngelicPrincess - GIMP is a free image editor. If you don't have support for layers, some things will be very hard to accomplish.

Once you get GIMP, you'll need to learn how to use all the features, so you will spend some time just doing random graphics tutorials (not from this site) so that you know your way around it, like learning how to use layers and the tools and effects it has.

Then you can use the information presented on this site - be it using photoshop or psp and you'll need to follow along doing the same sort of thing in gimp as is being done with the other editors. You might also check the tutorials at Complete Sim (http://www.completesim.net) where they use gimp.

Sweet!!! And just as a note to people who were cheap and got the Jasc Photoshop that came with their Dell, the 'lasso' tool Faylen speaks of is the 'magic wand' tool, located between 'move' and 'eyedropper.' It took me a while to figure that one out, so hopefully this will save someone some time.

OK, first of all, don't worry about getting a virus from recolored clothes, hair, accessories, etc. (BodyShop items) or walls and floors made with HomeCrafter. Your problem with viruses comes mostly from downloading houses and lots, which often have hacked items included in them. Second, you don't need SimPE to recolor clothes, but you do need a program that will edit images - that's PhotoShop, PSP, anything that will allow you to take a .bmp file, change it, and save it as a .bmp file. However, if the program doesn't have layer capability, you're going to have to do a lot more by hand and by trial and error. PhotoShop >is< expensive, but if you look around you might be able to find an older version or a student discounted version you can afford.

Great tutorial. Thanks, it's helped me a lot. Particularly, I didn't realize that you could delete the project from the projects folder and the saved projects in bodyshop. Now I can free up some space! Thanks a bunch again!

when it said looking up thought crimes.com that scared me

I'm sorry to be a bother, and I've asked this all over the web, but if it's not too much to ask, could you help?

When trying to recolor, this keeps happening.

This is what it looks like before I started coloring.
This is what it looks like after coloring, and pressing refresh.
The problem comes here when I try make a sim wear the clothes. See how it's all pixelated and ugly?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Go back and check your image size. You should have a texture image that's 1024 x 1024 pixels. It looks like your image has saved as 512 x 512.

I worked with the image that it had already saved to the projects file. I saved over that, it was the exact same size as it was supposed to be (I think). And it's doing the same thing when I try to make my own eyes. It'll look excellent after hitting refresh, then when I try to use it to put on a sim, it gets all blurred and screwy.

I'm sorry to be such a bother, I just really hate not being able to do this.

If it were showing up in your game that way, there would be a different explanation. How do other custom clothes from other creators look for you in Body Shop?

They look normal. Just like they do when I download them.

After hitting refresh, it looks fine. But when I try to put it on a sim, it messes up and looks like that.

Thank you for trying to help, I do appreciate it.

Thanks !!!

Hi, I'm not good at making skins and this will help thanks

Thank you so much, I've just recoloured my very first item of clothing, and it was Soooo easy. you are a GEM. Now I'm going to try selective recolouring.

Hi Faylen. your tutorials are great. I was just wondering if you could make one for people who use paintshop pro7? I just cant figure out how to do it using Paintshop pro. I'm trying to do selective recoloring. Thanks!

I'm afraid I won't be doing anything like that in the near future. I would love to see tutorials from people who use different programs, but I haven't had enough time to even do all the things I want to do with Photoshop yet!

how do you open the photoshop????

Yay!!! Faylen, you're my favourite moderator...

yay your a great help, easy to understand. now ive got to get my head around mesh!!

is it possible to make this work if i dont have photoshop?

ive been having the same problem! :-( ive recolored some hair, eyes, and clothes and they all do that same thing, look pixelated when you put them on the sim in body shop, but the downloads i have look fine. it happens in the game too.
tell me if you ever figure it out, i havent yet. thanx :-(

The skinning forum is a very useful place to check for these things. I have addressed this problem in the FAQ, stickied at the top of the forum.

yay! i think i found the solution! http://www.modthesims2.com/showthread.php?p=1157535
i think thatll probubly fix it, mine seems to be working good now yay!

thanx so much for all your help and the tutorial is awesome! :-)

Thank you sooooo much.....to be honest didn't have a clue how to do any thing...I wish I knew how to make my own clothes hmm maybe their is a tut. 4 that aswell. Any way thanx alot!!

Is there anywhere to get a free PS? And not just a trial version? All I have is PSP8... and it's way different than this tutorial. Any help would be great! The only this I have right now, is Adobe Photoshop CS2... but it's only a free trial...and I just downloaded it so I could do this tutorial. But I really need a more permanent solution. Thanks a bunches!!!

No such thing as free PhotoShop. You can try GIMP or Paint.NET, links to those are in the Skinning FAQs post at the top of the Skinning forum.