I use photoshop for bigger "projects" and paint shop pro for smaller little things just because its quicker to load and the base stuff seems quicker/easier to use. Both are awesome programs though.

I've used the gimp and it seemed impressive, especially for free software, but it just didn't 'feel' right to me. I do plan to give it another shot though... maybe I will right now, it's looking like it'll be an empty day here at work if I dont find some way to entertain myself haha. If I check it out I'll throw up some new impressions

I have been using Photoshop CS for the freshmen computer courses in my school. It was a very good program but I guess all those hidden tips and tricks include multitudes of series of stacked effects and graphics!!

I believe it's an easy program to get the hang of (of the basic utilities) but a very difficult one to master. I don't believe there is an end to the effects of Photoshop CS!! I also doubt that there will be an end to any Adobe products (except the outdated, dumb ones, such as Adobe PageMaker - it is horrible!)

Photoshop CS has a very big pricetag and I wonder why there's so much value on it. I mean, it can be a hobby but it will be expensive. It can also be a tool but only for those with the money and time, or else, it will go to waste. And also, approximately every few years or so, there will be a new version that comes out. I wonder how much you will spend if you keep upgrading your Photoshop software for 10 years!!

Well, these are my current graphics programs that I use:

-Adobe Photoshop CS
-Paint.exe (har har)

For a Graphics program, I always use Adobe Photoshop CS2, its what I have right now, and I would never change to anything else. Even though it may not be in your price range, since it is $600.00 US. If you have the money, go for it! Buy it, install it, read up on tutorials, and start making graphics! When I first pruchased the program, I had no idea what I was doing, I opened it, and it had all these buttons. It's like "What do I do?".

The first thing i did then was goto www.google.com and type "Photoshop Tutorials". Soon, tons of search results popped up with the tutorials I needed! I went from website to website reading tutorials until I became quite good, now I make graphics for online gaming clans, mostly for free, but I did get payed for my work a couple times.

Rippers, I het rippers, whenever I make tutorials an making graphics, I laways have to put some sort of watermark accross the background of each image for each step. You cannot imagine what some rippers will go through just to rip an image you made. It makes me so mad, I spent hours on making this graphic and not to mention the entire tutorial to benefit others, and some guy comes along, rips the graphic, and claims it as his own.

One other thing about the price of Adobe Photoshop, come on if you have a job, $600.00 US is not that bad of a price to pay if you want to get into professional graphic designing. I don't like people who just download a p2p program, and rip the program. That is not legal, and is very disrespectful to the progarmmers, artists, etc. who put together and created Adobe Photoshop CS, think, all their hard work, wasted.

I am sorry if I just wasted your time, I know I can go on for quite a while about rippers, it just makes me so mad. Hope you enjoyed at least some of the above information.

They now have a gimp hack (gimpshop) that is layed out simillar to photoshop so all you adobe user can easily get used to the gimp.

Cool, I will definately look at that, I definaltely aggree with the person that posted before saying, "Think of all the money you'll waste upgrading to a new photoshop each year" True, if you upgrade each year, that is alot of money you are spending, especially for a program that can now be used in th esame way on this new program (gimp) The thing that I love about photoshop is that is has so many features, I don't think there is an end to all the great features photoshop has to offer, i definately think gimp could even hold over 100 of these features, nothing could compare to Adobe Photoshop!

It would have to be an awful good, well made prgram to even come close!

I have used Paint Shop Pro and Adobe Photoshop.

I use photoshop in school in my digital photography class, and i use Paint Shop Pro at home. They are bother splended programs, and you can make really nice graphics with them. I think that they are really similar and have a lot of the same features. Photoshop has a few more though. However I think Paint Shop is easier though. The downside to both of them is that they are pretty expensive. I got Paint Shop as a gift though, and using photoshop is free at school. If you plan on buying one I would download the free trial of Paint Shop Pro at the jasc website first. If you dont like it then dont buy it and go with Photoshop.

I also use gimp and they have just relaesed a new on ebut its not yet ready for windows and some other programs!

Fireworks MX 2004. Fireworks 8 is just the same, but mith little changes. Nothing that has any great effect on me.

I have Photoshop tryout, but I can't get to grips with it.

I may try GIMP again, but the last time failed with the GTK failing.

I my opinion PHOTOSHOP is the best or most popular because you can find maximum online support for it. No other graphics software has as many online tutorial as PHOTOSHOP. Thus as we all are just a newbie to this graphics world, it makes working on PHOTOSHOP easier. At professional level i do not think that iy makes any difference be it GIMP, PHOTOSHOP or just MS PAINT.
There are many other softwares like PAINT SHOP PRO and ULEAD PHOTO IMPACT which are quite popular like PHOTOSHOP and provides enough online support.

Lets see what others say about this
SPEEDY

For me, my favorite graphics program is adobe photoshop 7.0. Before I usedc to use adobe photoshop elements 2.0 but then I upgraded and I'm lovin' it! But for my animations I like to use adobe imageready 7.0 which is a really good program as well.