i'm making my first WB skin and can understand your concerns, but SkinStudio is a great program and just takes a while to understand...

to use the template, just choose 'New' from the menu, name your skin, make it a UIS2 skin and click ok.  you will then have a template skin to start with.  you can change all aspects from here.  just click on a part of the skin, choose Edit, and away you go.

for the .tga stuff.  the easiest way i've found is to use .png files, and let SkinStuidio do all the work for you.  you can set in SS options (tools/Preferences - Editing/Image editors) to convet TGA files to PNG files.  you can then edit (or create your own) files with transparency, and then save the file as a .PNG file.  when you then import the .PNG file into SS, it will convert it to a .TGA file for you.  just make sure it you are using transparency that the correct options are set in SS, i.e. transparency and translucency settings (if you are directly editing a .TGA file, make sure that if you save it as a .PNG file you delete the Alpha channel first...if you are saving it as a .TGA file, make sure the Alpha Channel is correct - Alpha Channels are what give the image transparency/tranlucency - if you work with just .PNG files you don't have to worry about this))....if you look at the settings for a skin that uses transparency you will get an idea of how it works...

keep at it, i'm having great fun making my skin now that i have started to get over the SkinStudio learning curve...

Talk about major problems?...I've got one for you. How's this. Had to reinstall object desktop...fine...no problem there.Then I started repopulating the themes. Download suite...sure...it worked.Download windowblind themes...that's where the problems started. Popup from the system tray usually names the skin installed. Not this time. Four skins downloaded and four skins where it says a skin called........quotation marks instead of the skin name. Wierd huh...it gets better. Try to apply the skins...ain't happenin'! Blue-grill was not all blue the way it's supposed to be. All windows were red. No icon packs were downloaded...at all! It said they were but nope...not there. Neo suite...right colors but no icon packs, wallpaper, logon screen or sysmetrix. Design11...also a lot of the same. Now I can't remove Blue grille from sysmetrix. Five times and it will not be deleted. I thought maybe one of my antispyware programs had something to do with and in part it did. Had a problem uninstalling that too. But that's another story. Too many problems since I reinstalled object desktop. I'm pretty sure it's not the program as I never had any difficulty with it before. The first time around I had eight betas on my machine and they all worked perfectly...never a problem...not even a little one. Now I have all kinds...what gives???