Just a quick question,

I already have a basic understanding of Web Programming but I am yet to get to grips with Web Design.
I am planning on doing some tutorials on either GIMP which is free image editing software or Photoshop which will cost me, is it worth paying the money for Photoshop or should I use GIMP?

Photoshop is worth your money, however I did not try GIMP for last 2 years so I can not comment on it (2 years back it was realy just upgrade on Windows Paint program and no competition for Photoshop, maybe it improved since)

Photoshop is the industry leader in photo editing. It's the program that almost every professional photographer uses. It's also great for editing images and exporting to the web.

However, if you are looking to become a better web designer, you may find that Adobe Fireworks is what you are looking for. It is terrific for creating navigation bars, buttons, and other web graphics from scratch. It is also a good tool for slicing an image into multiple lightweight images. It basically enables you to create all the graphics you'll need for a professional CSS layout.

Also, Micro$oft has attempted to gain some of Adobes market with it's Expression Studio but, I haven't tried it out. The studio, along with Visual Studio 2008, Server 2003, and XNA Game Studio is free to download at the DreamSpark site if you are currently enrolled at a college or university.

Ah fantastic thanks and yes I am at university doing comp science and I've already takn advantage of their free software schemes so I'll definitely check them out many thanks to all replies

I'm a very good in graphics but I think, GIMP is pretty good image editing software and its worth learning. It has gained good reputation in community and the best freeware. Suffice most of my needs. The only thing I dont like about it is it's Non-MDI interface.

But of course Adobe Photoshop is now like an industry standard and incomparable to all those I have tried yet. So one day or other you will have to learn it, so I would say go for Photoshop.

Very often, GIMP is compared with Photoshop. You may see this link and see yourself

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...aphics_editors