1- Where do I get good baseline images I can edit or modify?

There are plenty of sites out there where you can get true free images. By 'true' i mean truly available, as opposed to just 'taking' them from a site where they may be copyrighted.

I'm not sure what is your game guild, (share a link?), Wow, Warhammer, CoX..etc ??

but there are plenty of resources you can look for there. Here are just a few suggestions:
- http://wow.warcry.com/images/
- http://media.pc.ign.com/media/016/016985/imgs_1.html

Each game and game forums usually have access to customized 'fan resources' where you can access icons etc.

One last link that is probably the biggest general image repository in the net is deviant art; This is not specifically game oriented, but there's plenty of categorized images, icons etc. The Fantasy categories usually have plenty of images that can be used.
http://www.deviantart.com/


2- What application can I use to edit or modify those?
Best choice I can suggest is to use GIMP - this is a free open Source Image editor which can have plenty of plugins and additions to it. Originally coming from Linux, it has been ported to Windows. While it can take a little time to learn and get used to it, it is really as good as many other full blown professional packages .. for free.

http://www.gimp.org/


3- Where do I put the modified images?
Any image hosting system out there...  photobucket, flicker, etc.

4- How do I modify the tabs to show my images?
4A. the easy answer if you only want to use the GP options:
Under Control panel, Style and Colors - Tab Images. You can place 2 images per tab, one 'active' and one 'inactive'.

4B. If you want a much more professional looking tab bar, or want to add more effects, etc, then use Mottie's instructions for a custom tab bar as found here:
Mottie's instructions for a custom tab bar

Cheers,
Ice

What I did for our tabs was actually not Images created from scratch, but simply a relatively 'fancy' font type, plus a little makeover in PowerPoint.

Here's what i did:
The font I used is called Abbaddon, and you can find it at
http://www.1001freefonts.com/
There's a heap of Fonts there you can use.

Downloaded and installed it. Then, used powerpoint 'WordArt' to add some 3D font effects, playing with the colors a little bit to give the tab text some perspective and texture. and also with the 'luminance' to generate 2 sets of titles, one more highlighted for the 'active' tab and one more subdued for the normal/inactive tab.
If you don't have PowerPoint, I believe OpenOffice's Draw has similar functionality. Or you can also do it with GIMP's features and filters, thou it may take a little bit more of playing with GIMP to get the right effect.

Once you have the basic titles, you can add extra images to the sides, for example...

When you're happy with the final effects, you can select the object(s), and 'Save as a picture'..  PPt will save only .bmp or .jpg, but that should work fine. Then you can use GIMP if you want to add additional effects (metalized looks for example) and save in .png, etc..

For transparency, you will need to save in .GIF or .PNG.; the jpg format doesnt handle transparency. depending on the size and content of your picture, one format may compress better than the other. I suggest you save both and choose the smaller..

COH/COV is my game as well. You can probably do a very similar thing by using the COH Font "RedCircle" provided in the Fan kit... I was just looking for a more 'arcane' look for our font type.


Check our site at my signature for the final effect if you like.