i use painshop pro 7.0... usually i cut out with point to point lasso, ive never used the wand cause im not experienced enough to think of using it, but mostly i just optimize the images and copy and paste as transparent images, i also like to optimize when i use the brush... its just ezier for me, it will take me any where from 10 minutes to an hour .... ill show you a 10 minutes one... find the user Bryan123 somewhere around here and you will see it, i made one for trackball also but i did a shitty job cause i didnt have time last night i spent about 5 minutes finding a spikeball and about 5 minutes splattin it together, you will see my newest and greatest work in the wallpaper contest, once im done with it

the banner im using now took me about 30 minutes