The Background Tab allows you to select either a solid background color. a background image, or a gradient to be in the background of the graphic.
To select a color, click on the Pick a Color button. A color dialog will appear. You can select a Basic Color from the left hand side, or you can experiment with the Color Wheel on the right side to pick the color shade.
To select an image, scroll through the list of Background Images. The Preview graphic at the bottom will display the image. To select an image not in the directory, choose Add Background Image. The image can then be selected from elsewhere on your computer.
To add images to the list of backgrounds, place additional backgrounds in the Background Directory as specified in the Options. The list of backgrounds points to a single directory (the default is c:\program files\banner maker pro 5\backgrounds) and by placing files within this directory, they will be added to the list of backgrounds.
Most of the images that come with Banner Maker Pro are sized 468W X 60H pixels as a default. You may notice distortion of the background image if you try to use another size. Other size backgrounds will have a different name to differentiate them from the 468 X 60 backgrounds. For example, a background named 125X125metal.gif is a background for a 125 width and 125 height image.
To select a gradient, click on the Gradient check box. The Gradient Start Color is also the background color. There are several different gradient types such as vertical, horizontal, square and elliptical. The number of colors used in the gradient can also be specified. One note on gradients: Gradients use many colors and may look poor when saved as a gif. The reason is that gifs are limited to 256 colors and the more colors that are used in a gradient means there are less colors available for text, images, and shapes on the same image.
Once you have selected a Background, click on Next to go to the Border tab.