Given your price range there are a few good camera about. Ah, that in USD isn’t it;)

Also a quick note on MP's 6mp vs. 10mp might night yield greater images to the point that you sit back and go "WOW! that makes a huge difference; kind of like digital audio vs. analog. But at the sizes you want to print your images, the higher 10mp might be better because of the output/size for printing. Basically your going to get larger prints with more mp's in the consumer genre. So keep that in mind. You may want to research 6 vs. 10mp a little further before deciding.

OK....

Anyways I have a couple suggestions:

Canon EOS 400D-I actually own this camera and have nothing bad to say about it yet:) Maybe that could be classed as a bias comment considering...

Pentax K100, apparently very good for the price. Has shake reduction, very good if you have unsteady hands. I actually looked at this model before getting the Canon; I found it to be very comfortable and it is packed with all the features you would need.  The ISD, Pentax models are also worth a look if budget is a concern.

Nikon D50, I also looked at this model before getting the camera (also D70S). I was going to get this model before I heard about the Canon coming out. The build quality of the Nikons is heavy duty. Compared to my Canon, the Nikon comes out in front when it comes to durability.

My advice, like many others here will tell you, is to go down your local camera shot, drag out some models your interested in and start playing. I would also recommend you look into print sizes with the 6v's 10mp side of things. Also, don’t worry about all the extra features on an SLR. Most if not all entry level DSLR's have auto modes and your various shooting modes e.g. landscape, motion, portrait... Who knows, down the road you might want to start using those manual settings to your advantage:) Also before I finish rambling, because you prefer to do all your image adjustment in Photo Shop, its worth considering getting a camera that supports "RAW". Do a quick search on "RAW" files and post processing to get a picture of what I mean. If you already know all this stuff, don’t take offence in my presuming you might not know some of these things:)

Anyways, good luck with the purchase and hope you made sence of some of what I’ve written:)

Michael.

P.S. sorry about the overly bloated post lol.

I never intended to make art.