Originally posted by FattyMcJ As far as a recommendation for software, I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 & Adobe Photoshop CS4.
If you can afford those two programs, you will learn to love them. Pro's use those two (and some others) because 1) They're quite intuitive and make workflow a breeze
Ouch ouch ouch ouch OUCH!!! You did NOT just go and call Photoshop Intuitive!!! It's like the LEAST-intuitive graphics program in the history of intuitiveness. Just because most professionals learn it and have it memorized by heart does not make it intuitive. What kind of an idiot software engineer goes and puts the colour management stuff in the "Edit" menu instead of the "Image" menu? Same for the "Stroke", "Fill", and "Transform" tools? Those things do NOT belong in the same place as "Copy", "Cut" and "Paste". The whole thing is a nightmare conglomeration of Mac and Windows user interfaces, with specific Adobe crap thrown into the mix that matches no user interface conventions.
I'll admit Photoshop is powerful, I was abusing it back when version 4.0 was the awesomest thing around (ONE undo level, and no History... you go and figure out how intuitive that was) and I've mostly kept up with it over the years. I still have CS2 residing on my system for the occasional thing that I haven't learned to do with other tools. But pretending it's intuitive just because it's the only thing you know is pretty far-fetched.
Personally, I think new users should stay as far away from Photoshop as possible (at least initially). Otherwise, they get sucked into a specific way of doing things that's not portable across other applications, and then they get stuck buying into the upgrade cycle forced upon them by Adobe, forking over money year after year just so they don't become obsolete. If you're a new user that hasn't been ruined by Adobe, try learning as many other things as you can first. Once you've reached the limits of what those can offer, THEN you can move up to advanced stuff like Photoshop. And get ready for a steep re-learning curve.