http://www.gimp.org/

You can normally get a slightly earlierly version of Paint Shop Pro for about 50 dollars from some of the computer retail stores. With PSPv8 out now, you can probably get PSP7 or PSP6 for about 50 dollars. All of them are about the same with slight improvements. But, all have the ability to do gradients, vectors, and antialiasing.

Now, if you must think cheap, then you probably don't want to get involved with this idea of making computer drawings. It can be quite expensive. Or, I suggest getting a rich spouse.

Also, you might get flamed for having two threads about basically the same thing. There are some good tutorials for WB skins too.

What is Gimp?

What is Gimp?

http://www.gimp.org/

"The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring."

Those are the first two lines on the page farkusmarkus gave you a link to.

hey! since when is Paint Shop Pro 600 dollars? or are you talking about Photoshop?

I was talking about photoshop! But, I just went out a while ago after getting so excited that I purchased "Paint Shop Pro 8" and Im off now to see how it works. Ill post more More questions later. Oh, almost forgot. It cost me $89 dollars! with $30 dollar rebate if upgrading from 7.
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He he he, another addict trapped! Good work guys & gals.

http://www.pluspsp.com/ PSP isn't that popular really, this site only has over 16,000 PSP related links

Try this:

http://search.ebay.com/paint-shop-pro

Question? In paint shop pro when I open a new file, What resolution should I use. It is set at 200,000 "pixles/cm" now. Should that setting be on "pixles/inch" What do most people set their's to? What changes? I am trying to determine best resolution for skining WindowBlinds. I just got PSP and want to start making graphics. Any other tips would be nice. Oh and one more thing. What is the difference between using a "Raster" background compared to the "Vector" background.
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That setting doesn't really matter too much. It might effect the proportion of the image in your paint program as compared to the image on your desktop. Your resolution is based on your color settings. 24bit color vs. 256 colors vs. 16 colors. The size of your canvas is important and color settings. For example, if you set your canvas as 600x600 and you have a 1024x768 desktop setting, your drawing will not fill the screen.

You don't have vector or Raster backgrounds. You have vector or raster layers. A raster layer allows you to have transparent pixels. A vector layer allows you to make vector drawings. A background is neither raster or vector. The color is based on your background color and it is not transparent. You can convert background layers to raster layers, and vector layers to Raster layers. You will learn the advantages as you become more familar with making drawings.

Also, this isn't something that you can just pick up one day and become a professional the next day. It takes years of practice. You have to first become familar with using your chosen paint program. That is your tool. Learn it well.

google PSP Tutorials...

Look into GUI, Skin, Interface and Objects creation tutorials with layered effects and play, play play!

Also you might want to stop by your local over sized mall book outlet/store, Borders, Barns and Nobel, and so on and pick up a book which has a large section on use of layers. layer effects and multi-layer graphics.

Once if you draw, paint and such you should pick it up pretty quick once you've started playing around with it. If not then it might be a bit, though there is a learning curve as with most new applications which everyone goes over or around first starting out. So don't push yourself to over kill so you burn out on it, if you get antsy, walk away for a little bit