Love this site. Would love to try to edit some of the pictures seen in the contests. Does anyone have any recommendations on some inexpensive software for a beginner? Or is there anyone that has upgraded their software and have a program they would be willing to part with? Any help would be appreciated. Your friend Daniel.

MS Paint is free with any version of Windows. That's what Claf uses and he's really good.


Seriously Daniel I'm in the same boat. I'm too poor to buy anything (damn kids). So I went out and downloaded GIMP. But it's really not for the beginner (although you can jump in and start using it).

I would never tell anyone that the best way is to download a pirated version of photoshop. NEVER.

ThePIMP is a good number 1, though.

I think some people here have used GIMP* and found it gave them good results.

But wait around long enough and I'm sure one of them will post here and tell you for themselves...

(* = Note: this refers to the freely-available open source image manipulation package, not anything of a fetishistic nature. Unless you get off on looking at open source code of course. But we won't go there...)

If your lucky you have a relative that has all the best software for his job. I'm still wondering, what exactly does a Land Developer use photoshop for?

I'll say GIMP too.

http://www.gimp.org/

Thank you all for responding to my post. I have not yet entered the contest, however I hope to very soom. Your friend Daniel.

better soomer than later

Scion, what the hell is a SOOMER?

Check: http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/index.html
Paint.NET was written from the scratch and is completely separate from Paint in every way except for its name. It's easier to grasp than the gimp, much more advanced than paint and it's free! Thoug MS programmers are involved this is not a Microsoft product.
Paint.NET Comes in languages: English, Chinese , Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, Frisian, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish
It runs on modern windows like XP sp1, (not Win 3.11, nor 98 nor ME)
You might need the .NET-framework-installer version, check the site for details.

you could always try photoshop elliments, comes free with some printers, cameras, it's very powerful and a great tool for learners