Graphic Design Programs

Ok, what is the best graphics program to use? I personally use Photoshop; it covers them all. Although, it's your choice based on cost and what you really need.

MS Paint

Program	Description	Review	Platform(s)	Rating	Estimated Cost
Photoshop	Image editor that animates and applies many effects not found elsewhere.	My favorite graphics program by far! It has loads of helpful tools, along with animation!	All	10/10	$500-1000
Illustrator	An expensive but amazing graphics program. Can animate. Uses proportions instead of pixels in order to make graphics appear perfectly when expanded or contracted.	Snazzy! There are some fun stamps built in so that you can do some pretty cool stuff. Fanciest program around, but the most expensive too, I believe.	All	10/10	$500 or so
ImageReady	An intriguing animation program that comes with Photoshop.	It does lots of cool animation! And...wow. It is the BEST program if you're making images for the web. That's what it's for. You can use it to make slices (so that you can chop your image into different parts) and to make Image Maps (Yay! No more trying to code that ourselves!) and you can preview it on the internet before you even save it. WOW! It has lots of cool styles for the shapes you can make on it, and some already have rollovers built in. There's way more, too!	All	10/10	Free with Photoshop
Paint Shop Pro	A program somewhat like Photoshop that is Microsoft only.	Microsoft only...tsk, tsk, tsk. I rate it bad because of that...because I can't use it! And to think...Apple is supposed to be the creative computer brand, while Microsoft is supposed to be for not wasting times...ANYWAYS, if you ARE on a Microsoft computer, it's pretty cool! Does the same stuff Photoshop does but not all the same, so a lot of people get both anyways.	Microsoft	7/10	$80
Animation Shop	An animation program that is Microsoft only.	Again, it's Microsoft only. GRR. But wow...the animations you can do are cool! All sorts of light effects, color effects, and movement that you can't easily do on other programs! If only it worked on Apples...	Microsoft	8/10	$30 or comes with PSP
ArtRage 2	This program makes it look as if you are creating real live paintings on a canvas. You can even sell them like paintings!	This is COOL! It looks as though you are using real mediums, not just pixels. You can set it so that you have to wet and clean your paintbrush and the water, or use mediums such as chalk, makers, color pencils, etc. The paints even blend like in real life! Cool!	Windows or OSX	10/10	Free trial version with limited features, or $19.95
Gimp/Gimpshop	A free program that includes animation and tons of cool features that you CAN NOT find in any other programs that I know of.	This is pretty nice! There are a lot of things that it does that other programs flat out don't do, but the end results often appear lower quality. Animation is more difficult, and there are a limited number of brushes. You have to use their copy command every time you copy or paste. Kind of confusing at first, but fun and worth the time!	All (?)	9/10	FREE!
EazyDraw	Uses basic shapes to create cool and precise grpahics.	I like how precise and neat it is, but GRRR. It is very expensive and the free trial is very annoying and limited. I really dislike that. If only it were CHEAP! It is made especially for designing, so that helps. It also will work great on files that are from Mac Classic! That is a plus!	Apple	6/10	$20 for 6 month license. Free 20 images.
Blender	This is made for creating 3D things, such as in games that are 3D or even movies!	WOW. This is cool! I don't know much about it yet, because I just got it, but it's pretty cool! I can't wait to try it out more!	Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X (PPC and Intel), Linux (i386), Linux (PPC), FreeBSD 5.4 (i386), SGI Irix 6.5, Sun Solaris 2.8 (sparc)	N/A -- limited use and knowledge.	Free
MacEtegami	A watercolor painting program designed for Apple computers.	Very nice! It works exactly how it would if you were painting with a paint brush, and you can also carve a seal and stamp it like how they do in China! You can import images to your painting. Also, you can directly send your image through mail and other things like that!	Apple	8/10	FREE!
Pixia	An advanced art program made to be like Gimp but easier. Originally for non-English speakers.	Does not work on Apple. Interesting and free, but if you already have Photoshop or PSP or Gimp there is no real need.	Microsoft	3/10	FREE!
Photobie	Similar to Photoshop, many cool effects.	Like Gimp, but I believe it may be much nicer! I have never tried it though, so I don't know much about it.	Microsoft	8/10	FREE!
Basic paint program.	VERY basic. It works fine, and has a few interesting features, but I would recommend donloading some other programs on the side.	Microsoft	6/10	Free -- should already be on a Microsoft computer.
Appleworks	Not only a paint program, but also a word processing program, a database program, and much more!	This is like at least the whole Microsoft Office (and Paint) all in one program! The paint program, I believe, is actually nicer! They have lots of templates, brushes, and fun patterns!	Mac OSX 10.0, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3	8/10	$90