unwanted blur effect on start panel (XP)

SkinStudio

(on Left side) click Edit StartMenu and Taskbar

(from center section) click Edit Start Menu

(new window pops up)

(on left side) Left hand side / click Bottom bar

(tab on bottom of window) click Extra Settings

(middle of window) click Background effect  Blur

(to the right of that) options change to "no semi transparency" / "Semi transparency" / "Blur"   click "Semi transparency"

(middle of window) what showed as "Background effect   Blur" should now show "Background effect   Semi transparency"

That'll  fix the bottom blur, might want to change other sections in the Start Menu to match, text can get tricky to read on very clear glass though.

Hope that makes sense?  I've really got to sign up with an image service one of these days.

I looked at your screen shots zoomed way in and I notice the blurred area is colored exactly the same in each screen shot. This can not be the skins if the skins are completely different. Xp does some artificial transparency, by this I mean it paints an image behind the window of what is on the screen, and uses it to simulate the effect. I noticed this when in xp with the vetical taskbar and with movie players. If I had a movie plying and opened a window or taskbar over part of the movie screen, half would be playing and the other a capture of the moment it hovers over the already opened program. I hope DaveRI hit the nail on the head , but if not, it just may not be solvable in xp with those particular skins. Just a thought. DT1

Nah, the blurring that you see is on the clear part of the Start Menu image, so it doesn't really matter what the rest of the image looks like, so long as the desktop wallpaper is the same, except of course for however the shadow sections might vary.  "Blurred behind clear" is "Blurred behind clear". I think if he can find the setting it'll take care of it.

I know what you're talking about otherwise though, and actually I think that happens on the "glow" section of the start button on Dragon.  It still seems a little off after killing the blur, I think the glow might not reflect the state change from clicking on the button.  Not quite sure how a person might change that other than some image editing, not ugly enough for me to worry about, really got to get down there and stare at it to see it.  If I got it to look great while the menu was up it probably wouldn't look right when the menu wasn't up.  Anyway maybe someday if I'm really bored.

So you are saying it looks the same because of the wallpaper being the same in both images? Is that accurate? If that is what you mean, I get it, otherwise ,I do not get it. But, this ain't about me, just curious was all. I like to increase my knowledge when possible. Does make sense.

I have not heard of anyone using skins needing skinstudio to tweak a finished skin, but I am new. Is this common?

Ya that all made perfectly good sense while I was writing it but a while later I thought "It sure would have been simpler if I'd just said:"

"You're seeing the same wallpaper being blurred through the clear sections of the two skins."

I think my brain got fried from all 2012's political babble.

Don't know if tweaking them is common, but ya I've tweaked hundreds, mostly out of personal preference.  Can't do diddly for original images, but I can tweak my gonads off.

Thanks for the info, it worked great! I will save this in case I ever run into this in the future.

I have no idea how this ended up this way, the skins worked fine and then got funny on me, lol.

The designers of these skins are masters, so I don't think it is their fault, I guess my machine has gone crazy 

Ouch, don't tweak those off. Thanks for the tutorial, much appreciated.

Meh, they pretty much just cause trouble anyway.

Wouldn't really call it a "tutorial", more like "somewhat organized ramblings", but you're both welcome.

Think of it like this. Every little bit helps. Tips and Tricks!