How to Make a Banner/Avi/Button Without a Fancy Program

This tutorial was inspired by HappCloudMoments tutorial on making a banner....but I found an easier, better way.

You need the Picasa 3 / Picnik programs and your product photos. Picasa3 (click on this to get free program for photo editing program)and with it comes Picnik (text editing program). If you use Etsy, you will need to make a banner and avatar for your store. If you are using eBay and Etsy you will need to make ad buttons and banners when you buy blog/web site ads. Banners for Etsy are 760 x 100 pixels. Avatars are 75 x 75 pixels. If  you buy an ad, the size will be stated when you buy the ad.

Step 1: Pick your photos. Just click on the ones you want. Ctrl-Click (Option-Click on Mac?) to select multiples.At this point you can also import your logo.  You will noticed that the ones you picked are stored in the tray in the lower left hand corner. If you are picking pictures from different directories, you have to "pin" them in the tray by clicking on the little green thumb tack. To unpin something, click on the picture you want to unpin and then the red circle button.

Step 2: Click on the Collage button in the bottom toolbar and once you are on the collage page click on 10.6 x 1/4 Real Banner. You can also set background color.

Step 3. In the left panel, select picture pile and make sure the draw shadows option is checked.

Step 4. Scale and arrange the pictures to fill collage. Just click on the image and it will pop up that gray circle with the little dot. You can rotate and scale using that.

Step 5: Click Create Collage.

Step 6:  Click on Picnik Icon.

Step 7: Click Edit to Resize. Unclick use percentages and unclick keep proportion. Type in 760 x 100 for banner (75x75 for avatar).

Step 8: Click Create to add Text. Choose font, color, size, etc. Click add.

Step 9: Pick a frame if you like. I have used drop shadow.

Step 10: Save to Picasa. Save to your computer picture file.

When you do the avatar add text and frames before you resize.