When I have my Yahoo! chat window open with someone so it shows my picture, I do a ''screenshot'' of the monitor (Print Screen) button up top on your keyboard.
Then I open up Adobe Photoshop or my image editing program...
Open a new document in it (aka New Document)
Paste the image/screenshot in (control V typically works)
Then I crop out the avatar image using the Crop tool
You have to size your avatar to 96x96 or as close as possible. So I try to crop as close as possible in a perfect square what I want to have in the image (aka I had to crop out the bottom of my avatar''s shirt in my current avatar to get it to be a square).
Then I check the image size. If it''s something like 109x110 then I''m close, so I just ''resize'' to 95x96. If you don''t have it 96x96 or a square, it will be distorted in the PS avatar. So sometimes I put a black background behind it that is 96x96 so that the image is that square.
Then I save it as a JPG and upload it to PS!
Sorry it sounds so complicated, it''s really not!!