If you’re a creative person that does design work on a computer, chances are pretty good that you’re using Adobe® Photoshop or Adobe® Photoshop Elements at some point in your creative process.  Did you know that you can use Adobe Photoshop comfortably alongside BlackBerry® Theme Studio to streamline the process of creating BlackBerry® themes?

One of the first things you’ll want to do when creating a theme is set your default image editor in BlackBerry Theme Builder, which is the BlackBerry Theme Studio tool that assembles all the pieces into a shiny new BlackBerry theme. If you set a default image editor, you can use it to edit the individual icon and background graphics easily.

Setting your default image editor

• From your Windows Start menu, select BlackBerry Theme Studio v5.0 and then select Theme Builder.
• Once Theme Builder launches, select Edit -> Preferences
• From the Preferences dialog, click Applications.
• Under Select Default Image Editor, click Browse and locate the image editor you want to use in your Windows directory. Typically, this will be under Program Files, in a folder named after the company who makes the application. For example, on my computer, Adobe Photoshop is located at C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS4\Photoshop.exe.
• Click OK

Editing images

Once you have set your default image editor, you can use it to re-edit the images that you’ve imported into your theme, should you want to improve or change them.

For example, suppose I want to edit the image used as the background on my home screen. In Theme Builder’s inspector, I’ll click the Theme the Home Screen button. This brings up the features of the Home Screen that I can edit or change, including the Home Screen background.

Beside the various icons and backgrounds that can be imported, you’ll notice a dropdown arrow. If you click the arrow, a menu appears. To edit the image that you’ve imported, click Edit …

From here, your default image editor of choice (Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Corel Paint Shop Pro, the GIMP, uLead PhotoImpact … whatever you’ve set up) will launch with that image ready to be edited using the tools of that editor. Make your design changes and save your work in the image editor.

Then click the Dropdown again and click Reload. The updated image will be added to your theme.

Importing Photoshop Files

A new feature that we’ve added into BlackBerry Theme Studio v5.0 is the ability to import Adobe Photoshop .PSD files into BlackBerry Theme Builder. Any time you import an image into your theme, you now have the ability to import all the usual image suspects as well as Photoshop files as well.

If you have any questions you’d like answered about building BlackBerry themes, please post them below in the comments section!

In my previous BlackBerry® Theme Studio post, I explained the main features and tools of new version 5.0. Now that you have this information under your belt, the process for creating a BlackBerry theme is pretty easy. I suggest you download BlackBerry Theme Studio v5.0 and have the software open as you read along. Let’s get started!

Step 1: Make your theme assets.

Design your icons, backgrounds and other theme images in your favorite design tool – Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro, BlackBerry® Composer etc.

For fun, I’ve designed a new background image for my theme:

Step 2: Import your assets into the right spot in Theme Builder.

For example, suppose I want to change the background on my Home Screen to this space background. I will:

1. Jump into Theme Builder.
2. Click the Home Screen button in the Inspector.
3. Click the Background button.



4. Add the background I want. Theme Builder can accept JPEGs, BMP,  GIF, PNG and(new in this release!) Photoshop files.



5. The new Background is added to my theme.

Customizing your theme icons, highlights and backgrounds throughout works pretty much the same way. Design the graphic, bring it in and Theme Builder puts it in the right spot.

Step 3: Put your theme on a BlackBerry® smartphone.

Once you have the Theme looking the way that you want, it’s time to put it on a real BlackBerry smartphone:

1. Click File ->  Export. This pops up the export dialog.
2. Select Install To BlackBerry.
3. Enter a Theme Name and your BlackBerry password.
4. Plug in your BlackBerry smartphone to your computer using a USB cable.
5. Click OK.



6. BlackBerry Theme Studio packages up your theme into a format that the BlackBerry smartphone can read.
7. You’ll be asked to “Activate” your new theme on your BlackBerry smartphone, which means that you’re making it the default theme on your BlackBerry. Click YES

And the theme is up and running!

In future posts, we’ll introduce a series of tips and tricks to aid your BlackBerry theme creation. For now, post a comment below of what type of BlackBerry theme you’d like to make and what you think of the new BlackBerry Theme Studio v5.0.

If you’ve been a BlackBerry® smartphone user for awhile, you’ve likely come across BlackBerry themes. BlackBerry themes change the way your BlackBerry smartphone home screen looks: from the background image to the icon and cursor style. Some BlackBerry themes also feature animations and a completely unique home screen experience.

Did you know that you can make your own BlackBerry theme? What’s better, the newly released BlackBerry® Theme Studio 5.0 makes it pretty easy to customize your BlackBerry smartphone with a unique theme. All you need is a bit of creativity and some skills with graphics software like Adobe® Photoshop®, Adobe Illustrator®, Adobe After Effects® or BlackBerry® Composer.

Today I’m going to walk you through the main interface of BlackBerry Theme Studio 5.0 and in a future post we’ll go step-by-step through the building process. Let’s get started!

Where to get BlackBerry Theme Studio? 

You can download BlackBerry Theme Studio for free from www.blackberry.com/themestudio. It’s an application for Windows – just download it onto your computer and install.

You’ll notice that BlackBerry Theme Studio actually contains two products in the suite: Theme Builder, and Composer.

BlackBerry Theme Builder

BlackBerry Theme Builder is the “theme design” tool of the suite. BlackBerry Theme Builder lets you change the images that get used for things like icons, background graphics and cursors. You can also adjust the fonts, change the position of many objects on the screen, decide which applications appear and change the color and properties of things like dialog boxes.

The main interface of BlackBerry Theme Builder is divided into a few different parts:

• The Preview Window
• The Catalog Panel
• The Inspector Panel>
• The Alignment Panel

The Preview Window – seeing how your theme will look

The Preview Window shows off your theme along with how it will look on the BlackBerry smartphone you’ve decided to make a theme for. The “preview” is – for the most part, just that … a preview.

When using BlackBerry Theme Builder, you almost always change the properties of your theme in the Inspector (more on this in a second) and don’t manipulate anything on the Preview window itself unless you’ve selected a function in The Inspector which asks you to then change things in the preview window directly.

An example in this would be when you select “REPOSITION BANNER ITEMS” items in the Inspector. Selecting this option will make it possible for you to select any item in the banner shown in the preview and move them around the screen to your liking.

The Inspector Window – where the work gets done

The Inspector is where you do the bulk of your work in BlackBerry Theme Studio. The Inspector segments the elements of your Theme into organized parts. You’ll notice several buttons as you work your way down the inspector and pressing each one takes you into a different area that you can customize.

Banners: Clicking on this button will let you change the properties of the banners that appear at the top of your home screen or in some of your applications. This includes the icons that appear (such as your battery life status), the position of icons and the fonts of the text.

Home Screen: Clicking on this button will let you change the elements that appear on your home screen (the primary screen of your BlackBerry smartphone), including the background, the applications and the icons.

Application List Screen: Clicking on this button will let you change the properties of your application screen, including the icons of the applications, the order of the applications and the background image.

Controls: Here, you can have fun with the controls that appear on the BlackBerry smartphone.  Manipulate the appearance of the dialog boxes, the buttons that can be selected, menus, title bars and more.

Phone Screen: Clicking on this particular button lets you change around the images that appear when a call comes in or is dialed out and you can now add your own ringtone.

Lock Screen: Clicking on this button gives you the option to edit the backgrounds, icons and fonts that appear on the screen when your BlackBerry smartphone is locked.

Global Items: Global items are a fancy way of referring to things that appear “globally” throughout the BlackBerry smartphone. Examples include things such as the progress bar that appears when an application is downloading, the key identifier that appears when a button is held down and the hourglass that appears when an application is installing or launching.

The Catalog – managing your theme images

BlackBerry Theme Studio ships with a bunch of background images and sample graphics that you can use when creating your BlackBerry theme.

The Alignment Window – lining things up

The alignment window helps you position objects correctly in the preview and works similarly to alignment tools in other graphics software.

How do I design those graphics? – Enter BlackBerry Composer (or just about any other design tool you prefer)

The second tool is BlackBerry Composer, a design and animation product that is great for helping you craft images, whether they’re static or animated. BlackBerry Composer has a full set of tools for designing built into it and it’s great for adding life to your images without having to buy other software.

BlackBerry Theme Studio is also friendly with other design tools. If you want to design your graphics in something like Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, that’s fine too. If you want to add animation, you’ll need to learn a bit more about BlackBerry Composer, but we’ll cover that another time.

Next, we’ll cover the specific steps required to build a BlackBerry theme. Until then make sure to download BlackBerry Theme Studio 5.0.