 1) In the top bar, click on "New" and create an image the width and overall height you want your divider to be - if in doubt, 500 x 50 pixels is a good start. Flood-fill this rectangle with the same colour as your page background if you already have a home for your divider. 2) Open the Layers palette with the L key and create a new layer (click the "double page" icon in the top left corner of the Layer palette.) 3) Make sure this layer
is highlighted, and draw your divider bar across the centre in
whatever manner you choose. If using the "Draw" tool, open the
"options" palette (with the O key) and check "single line" "stroked"
and "antialias" and 10 is a good width to choose.
4) On the top toolbar
again, select "Image" "Effects" and "inner bevel" and then on
the "inner bevel" palette, experiment with the effects and settings
if you want to, or use "round" with its default settings. When
the preview shows the effect you want, click "OK." 5) You might want to save your image at this point - save as a psp image for the time being. 6) If you have an image you want to use on your divider, open in in PSP now. You can use clipart or create an image of your own. If necessary, increase the colours to 16 million (click on "colours" and "increase color depth") 7) Pick up the background colour of the image (using the "dropper" tool) and then add a border 1 pixel wide all round your image. 8) Using the "Magic Wand" tool, click on the background of the image - a dotted line will appear, outlining the background. Leave this highlighted and press ctrl, shift and I simultaneously - the dotted line will switch to outline the actual image. 9) Press Ctrl C and then Ctrl V and a copy of your image will appear with a transparent background (shown as a checkerboard pattern) : this is the image you need, you can close the other one (no need to save it.) 10) Now click on File in the top bar, and Export / Picture tube. Don't worry about any of the other settings, just name it and save it. When it's saved, you can close the original (don't worry if it asks you to save it again - just say NO! ) 11) Back to your bar : create another layer (layer 3) on top of the background and bar layers. 12) Now look for
the picture tube icon on the toolbar - it looks like a paintbrush
with a bottle or rubber stamp or something next to it. Click on
this and the options palette will show a menu which has a tiny
picture of the selected tube (it will come up with one of the
standard default tubes until you've used your own) and various
drop-down menus. Find the name of your new tube, and estimate
what scale you need to reduce it to (this bit is going to be trial
and error, you can always use the "undo" option on the toolbar!)
Us the slider to resize your picture and click it into the middle
of the new layer. When the size is correct, slide it into precise
position with the cross-arrows tool.
 13) You may want to add a shadow to your divider - it's entirely up to you - if you do, you need to merge the top 2 layers first : on the layer palette, click on the "spectacles" alongside the name of the background layer, then click on one of the other layers. In the toolbar, click on "Layers / Merge / Merge visible" and you will have two layers - Background and Merged. Un-click the spectacles on the background layer. 14) Highlight the Merged again and use the Image / Effects / drop shadow settings for an effect you like.
15) If you don't want a shadow, skip stages 13 & 14 16) Now set the transparent background : click on "Colors" and "Set transparency." Now select "Yes" and "OK" on the next 2 pop-ups, then use the dropper tool and click on the image background - the radio button next to "Set the transparency value to palette entry …" will check itself. Click "OK." The menu should now have closed - click on "Colors" again and then "View palette transparency" - if you've done it correctly the background should change to a checkerboard (it may be tinted, but that's OK.)
17) NOW - save your finished image as a gif (it MUST be a Gif to preserve the transparency. 18) Use on your web page or in Word documents ("hard copy" dividers are best without shadows.)
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