Need a good graphic design program...

Corel Graphics Suite 12 is what I would recommend. I think the UI is very intuitive. First time buying can be expensive, but I've been using it for 12 years, upgrading every other version so it's not bad...

Blender

Paint Shop Pro. Or you can ask one of us to do it. ^_^

I second the PSP vote!

Photoshop is the standard for that sort of thing. Blender is good for a free 3d modeling app, but it has a steep learning curve.

I bet you can find photoshop7 cheap on ebay. It's the same as PhotoshopCS without the annoying copy protection.

Edit: I found a cheap buy now auction for ps7

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...144499665&rd=1

Blender for 3d, not a bad choice. Paid alternatives are 3DS, AutoCad(For certain things), SoftImage, Maya... etc. The list goes on, someone else mentioned it Blender has a really steep learning curve but once you get used to it I love the interface, lets me move FAST.

Photoshop, industry standard for image manipulation. Also probably the best manipulator out there. However there is another one most people dont even know about, Gimp. I am fairly sure it works in windows but is best known in the linux world, is open source(So essentially free) and gives Photoshop a very good run for its money, in fact I use it instead of photoshop and havent had a problem yet(Used both Gimp 2.0 and Photoshop CS, VERY close comparison there) Easily the second place app in my opinion, but very close to first also.

Image creation, Illustrator, or I really dont know of a good one, dont do as much of that myself My wife does like Corel Draw for that, but I cant speak directly about it.

Seablade

For illustrations, logos, you should really use a vector graphics program, like Corel Draw. Gimp and Photoshop are for working with bitmap images. If I were you, start with Gimp, it's free. If it does what you want then your set. But I think you should look around for a program for working with vector graphics... Sorry I don't know a open source program for working with vector graphics...

That is true, but I've always found programs like Adobe Illustrator REALLY tedious. I do all of my designs and logos in 3dsmax and Photoshop. I just make sure I do them at REALLY high resolutions. I try and stay around 300dpi for whatever i'm doing.

You can do virtually anything in photoshop, but I find it easier to render out certain shapes in max (or blender) and then manipulate them in photoshop. Gimp isn't bad, but there's just soooo many resources for learning photoshop which is a big help for noobs.

Rakewell, can you post the sketch here? I can tell you how difficult it will be to create as vector or raster.

-BT

Illustrator CS2 (of which I am a beta tester) has a GREAT new feature that will take any bitmap and turn it into a great vector image.

Assuming he scans and works in high enough resolution (2000 x ???) and keeps it on a white background, conversion to Vector is really a breeze now, and it looks almost exactly like the bitmap.

Oh god...don't ever recommend Corel Draw to anyone serious about graphic design. Or to anyone who is even thinking about doing any type of design for that matter. It's awkward to use, and it's eps export abilities are kinda crappy and eps files exported from corel draw do cause problems when professionally printed.

For logos Illustrator is what you want. It's an industry standard programme and it's quite intuitive and it uses PostScript from drawing to printing so you'll almost never have any problems printing from Illustrator eps files and when you do have problems it's usually because they're being printed by a printer with some pseudo form of PostScript.

And while you can do logos and such in Photoshop they will never—unless you take the time to use Photoshop's lacking vector capabilities—print as crisp as a vector image due to the nature of bitmapped images over vector ones and how things are printed professionally.

And MrGraphics, while I haven't had the chance to try the new vectoriser in Illustrator CS 2, I will say that I've never seen a vectoriser that does anywhere close to as good a job as someone sitting down and drawing over something by hand. It's easier to use the vectoriser, and they work great in a pinch, but it's usually worth it in the long run to redraw by hand.

If this is a one shot deal, then one of us would be more than happy to help you out. It's a waste of money to purchase the software and time to learn how to use it.

If you are going to continue with graphic design, then I would recommend Adobe products, since they are the standard of the industry for both Mac and PC platforms.

If this is a one shot deal and you want to try it on your own, then I would suggest downloading some of the free or shareware programs. Since they are either free or shareware, they will have a much easier learning curve. The other programs (Adobe, Corel, etc.) are for professionsals, are costly and require a very steep learning curve.

There are literally tons of free stuff out there. I just downloaded a free CAD program for my son since I did not want to spend $4,000 for another AutoCAD seat...pretty impressive program.

LOL

I third the vote for Paintshop Pro. It's the cheaper alternative to Photoshop. I've tried many versions of Photoshop and have always preferred PSP.

A free alternative is Paint .NET. It's a sort of unofficial update to MS-Paint with improved features, often compared to GIMP only for Windows.

Heh Gimp works on windows And Mac, and Linux....

And really isnt for image creation at all, more for manipulation. Last I checked PSP was based more for creation correct?

Seablade