you know.. I tried gimp... and HATED IT.

What about trying to find an older copy of photoshop on eBay?

I *loves* photoshop. :D

That's interesting, that you hate the gimp. What didn't you like?

For me, the price is right, gimp works under my operating system, and the program is more than powerful enough to do everything I need it to do.

When I first started using it, I had problems with the interface, mostly because it took a long while for me to catch on that depending on where you are in the menu, actions will be performed on either the entire image or on a subset (layer). I have no graphics training whatsoever and, to add to my confusion, I have a shaky grasp of graphics terminology. For example, I still don't understand what modes are. I know I can pick normal or dissolve, but I have no idea why or what they do. The same holds true for multiple, divide, screen, and overlay. I sort of guess my way around and eventually get to what I want, but typically I have no idea how I got it and no clue how to replicate the effect.

Gimp wasn't very 'user' friendly to me... I guess. Seemed to take *forever* to do anything I wanted to do. Now that I'm well versed in Photoshop... I wonder now if gimp would be easier.. but all I remember at the time was.. NAH! Get me outta here. :D

(I've been working in photoshop for about a year now... you can buy older copies fairly cheap, then upgrade to the more recent versions fairly cheap, too. Just FYI.)

I wonder that too, if you'd find gimp easy now that you're well versed in Photoshop. Judging by the Photoshop tutorials I've seen, the two programs have many commonalities.

Looking for an older copy of Photoshop is a great idea and one I'll recommend to those who want to try it. For me, though, supporting open source software is the way to go.