Paint Shop Pro

The graphics editor that I use is called Paint Shop Pro. It costs under a hundred dollars (much cheaper than Photoshop, another good graphics editor) and is much simpler to use than it's more expensive competitors.

Paint Shop Pro is simple starting from the installation and proceeding to the major features. I find it to be a very powerful graphics editor - almost as powerful as Photoshop without the huge learning curve of that program.

Once of the really cool things about Paint Shop Pro is that it accepts Photoshop filters and plug ins. A filter allows you to apply certain effects to a graphic - things such as motion blurring or a candle effect. A plug in adds significant functionality to the program, expanding it in some way beyond the original design.

Paint Shop Pro has user definable picture tubes, which are a simple way to get a random, repeating graphic created. These are a really cool idea, and I've found them very useful for creating unique backgrounds and such.

In addition, I've found Paint Shop Pro to load much quicker than the other graphics programs. This makes the effort of editing go much quicker.