Stripes from a Photo

What we'll do: Create stripes based on the colors in a photo.

What you'll need: PSP8 or later. The specific instructions given here are for PSPX, but this tutorial is readily adapted to the earlier versions.

Steps:

Open the photo you want to base your stripes on. Duplicate the photo and close the original.
Crop a bit of the photo to include the colors you want. Be sure that the colors are right up against the left edge or the top of your cropped photo.
Reduce the colors with Image | Decrease Color Depth | X Colors (4/8 bit). Choose a small number of colors - 16 or less is usually good. Choose Optimized Median Cut and Nearest color. Click OK.
Increase the color depth again with Image | Increase Color Depth | RGB - 8 bits/channel.
Choose Effects | Image Effects | Offset. Set Edge mode to Repeat, and either set Horizontal as far as it'll go and Vertical to 0 (if your colors are along the left edge) or set Horizontal to 0 and set Vertical to as far as it'll go (if your colors are along the top edge). Click OK.
Save your stripe pattern as a paletted PNG, TIFF, or BMP.