I'm looking to do some computer art and need a good program. I'm specifically interested in creating small graphics, such as for avvies, buttons on forums, symbols, and other things.
Recommendations?
Paid programs are fine, but freeware is always preferable, as long as its decent. =)
Thanks in advance.
~Joshua~
Well Paint.NET is ok.
GIMP is also free, has a windows version and quite powerful though somewhat obtuse at times. May be "too much".
Photoshop elements is relatively cheap for an amazingly full featured paint program. (90% of Photoshop at 10%of the price)
Then there is Photoshop. Expensive to start to be sure, but once your in you can update as often or inoften as you want (almost) for a resonable price.
Fore more pure art Painter (now owned by Corell) is really really nice and not horribly expensive.
In addition to the above great suggestions, given your stated aims Take a look at the free IconFX, which may well be of use to you in addition to which ever main application you choose.
IcoFX - The Free Icon Editor
It has the main purpose of creating windows ICO files, up to and including the win7 specific 256x256 pix ones.
It does however allow the export of files in BMP, JPG, PNG, & GIF formats
An essential Tool IMO for anyone working with windows UI elements, it's compact and free and has some good functionality including the ability to extract existing icons - which is always useful :)
ADOBE Photoshop is still the best for me.
But there are other programs like CorelDraw, etc. can do similar graphics and photo manipulations.
GIMP is working out really well for me, but does anyone have any plugins they recommend for it to rival photoshop more?
~Joshua~
For plugins for GIMP, do a Google search "GIMP plugins" and you will find more plugins than you ever wanted.
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