If you wish to do this for a living, bite the bullet, pay the bloodmoney, and get Photoshop, since it will land you jobs once you have a decent portfolio of what you can accomplish. Better save and save for this route, unless you are just naturally wealthy. This one will run you around 800.00 unless you can redeam an earlier version for an upgrade. BTW you may wonder, "What sort of jobs?" Most Photoshop experts with 3 to 5 years of experience make around 40.00 to 65.00 an hour and up per billable hour. If all you wish to do is art for arts sake, and do not plan to run out next week and storm the graphics market with your skills like I did a few years back, go for PSP. I am increasingly impressed at how they manage to get that program to do more and more each day. It will only set you back about 59.00 to 99.00 depending on where you shop. The third solution is a two choicer. It is middle road. Painter on the one hand... which I find to have a frustrating interface. Photopaint on the other hand... which I find to have a frustrating interface. These are both relatively affordable to hobbyists.