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January 30th, 2010 
adam 
PS3 Theme Creator for Mac
Hi there, if you’re a avid PS3 user like me, the chances are you’ve thought about making your own PS3 Themes. I’ll admit there are tons of PS3 theme creators out there for windows. But if you’re a Mac owner like me the chances are you haven’t found anything to make your PS3 Themes. Well worry not longer…
The Program
I have the answer! There’s a program I’ve found for the Mac called PT3 Builder. It lets you do all the things you could do on the advanced PS3 Theme Creators for Windows, like adding 2 or more wallpapers in SD and HD (standard and high definition) custom icons etc. It has a clean simple set out and is perfect for beginners. Most of you won’t of herd of it yet because it doesn’t come up on Google or other search engines, but it has been circling a few of the PS3 forums which is where I found out about it.
Setup
To download it visit http://www.ps3sa.co.za/. You will need to register to the site before downloading it but other than that you should be fine. After downloading it load it up and you’ll see something like this:
After you’ve opened it you need to know the sizes for the SD and HD background, icons. Etc. (the following sizes are in pixels)
HD wallpaper: 1920×1080 JPG file, (up to 1080dpi/71p)
SD wallpaper: 640×480 JPG file, (up to 1080dpi/71p)
(XMB) icons: 128×128, 170×128, 228×128, 48×48, 64×64, PNG file (71dpi/71p, which is standard when making a new image in Photoshop, Gimp, Paint, etc.)
Sound: VAG file, (I Recommend downloading Sound Recorder Mac for free from http://mac.softpedia.com/progDownload/Sound-Recorder-Download-4010.html, it lets you easily record and export sound, you can also export downloaded sound files to .VAG)
Getting Started
First we’ll Start with the Wallpaper. Make a new image sized 1920×1080 pixels, to get the best out of your wallpaper you should change the dpi/p from 72, to 1080. Once you’ve made your Wallpaper save it as a .JPG file then resize it and save it with another similar file name e.g. Ps3wallpaper1.jpg and ps3wallpaper2.jpg or ps3wallpaperbig and ps3wallpapersmall.jpg.
Click on the “+” icon on the left of the program and when the opening screen comes up click in the search bar and write the start of your JPG file name (this is to select them both easily.) After you’ve found them both, as you can see I have in the image above, then select the and the second using the shift key. Then click open…
Once you’ve imported your 2 wallpapers you’ll notice that they show up on the left and on the main screen, clicking on each of them will give you an idea of what they’ll look like on your PS3.
After that you can make your icons and save them in a specific folder so you can access them easily, see the “Setup” part of this tutorial above for the sizes of icons which you can use, I usually use 128×128 but if your looking to make your theme downloadable then you should use a smaller size (it doesn’t vary a lot with most TVs to be honest.) so it doesn’t take too long to download. Click on each icon on either the XMB setting or regular setting. It’s much easier to add them on the regular setting in my opinion…
Adding sound files is very easy. You need to convert to VAG (which is the PS3 basic sound file setting) for more information take a look at the “Setup” part of the tutorial.
You can also add info like your website, name (the filename is not the name that will show up on your PS3, it’s the name that you enter in the name box) etc. in the I icon settings next to “XMB” and the sound icon.
For more info click on help > PT3 Builder Help and you should find the answer your looking for.
Final Steps
Save your Theme in either your USB or a folder on your Mac. Then upload it to your USB stick. Finally put your USB stick in your PS3. Click on theme settings > theme > Install. Then click on your theme.
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Awesome tutorial!!! Thanks for helping out and spreading the word.
NP
thanks for the comment 
hope you can help spread the word 2.
It keeps telling me I sized them wrong. Can I not use preview on Mac to create it?
Preview on mac isn’t a good enough program to use, you need a program that can at least change sizes on, I’d suggest using GIMP or a Photoshop trial. You can find the download links on google
I get an incorrect size warning as well, it claims HD pic needs to be 19,220 Pixels wide. As it should be 1920 this looks like a very simple mistake in the program code in a recent update, or something along those lines (I’m using version 3.15). Can anyone else confirm?
Forget what I said, although the popup is wrong, it turned out my SD pic was one pixel out vertically and horizontally, and now works.
I’m trying to create the XMB icons, but I can’t seem to create an RGBA .PNG file. I’ve converted the image to RGB and then created an alpha layer, but it wont load the icons…What am I doing wrong?
RGBA is a normal .png file (it means red green blue a=?) so just make a pic, then write .png at the end in the write size (check sizes on my post.)
comment ack if your still getting problems.
Do I have to specifically write .PNG after each file name? Because I saved them as such after they were converted to RGB, and sized them to 128×128 with a pixel resolution of 71, but it still didn’t work.
yep, if you write .png after what your naming it (it doesn’t have to be the same name as it says on the open box in the mac ps3 theme creator.) if using GIMP or photoshop it should work, What software are you using? I had a few problems in 64×64 i think but other than that all mine have been fine.
Downloaded Sound Recorder Mac, and it doesn’t show that VAG format as an option. And I can’t find any option on the mac to create VAG files. Anyone have any ideas?
Oh sorry, did I not tell you in the post? I’l update now, to convert to vag open it thr nav bar file > open then select the file then click export and choose where you want to save, heres the important part, type .vag at the end of you sound file, eg ps3soundfile1 or ps3 sound file 1, whould be ps3soundfile1.vag or ps3 sound file 1.vag did that help?