I have never used graphics or image editing software before (all of the websites i make look awfull ), so i want to buy some graphics software, and a book to go with it. At the moment, ive looked at: photoshop elements 5 and paintshop pro

 

any advice?

Hi Alex, are you relatively new to web design may I ask?

 

If so, these packages should do you fine, there are plenty of Tutorials out there, peronsally I would go with Paint Shop Pro as it will have more functionality with it and there's so many tutorials out there to get your started.

 

Fireworks & Photoshop are the prefered choice, but are expensive. So if your on a budget definitely stick with Paint Shop Pro.

I am more of a web developer (i know PHP, HTML and CSS quite well), however i just dont know how to use images in a website (so im eager to learn ).

 

Thanks for your advice, my budget is quite small, so i'll look at Paint Shop Pro

i know this sounds FUBAR but paint shop pro 7 is the best one, far outdoing any of the Corel PSP's

I'm a developer and have never had a problem that PSP can't sort. It's not anywhere near as powerful as the full photoshop but it is usually powerful enough and much cheaper.

Why not try the Gimp especially if you just want to experiment. It will do everything for web pages that any other programme mentioned can and it is open source and free to use. In fact it was developed with web graphics in mind. Ideal for a small budget as you could spend the money on something else.

well when i'm thinking of graphics, image editing software there are 3 names coming into my mind: Fireworks, Adobe Photoshop and Corel. Fireworks is good for starters, easier to use, you'll learn it very fast reading tutorials and also, if you know fireworks well, you'll understand Photoshop fast. Corel is much more complex, and can be used in other purposes than image editing. Still, depending on your budget of course, i'd say Adobe Photoshop it's best pick.