Thanks, Kahshe, for the info on CS5. The ads sounded promising but it is good to hear from a fellow artist that it lives up to the hype.This may be Adobe's answer to their competition in the area of digital painting. I think I will go download the trial version and see for myself.

Barb

Programs like Artrage and Painter are nice if you can afford them and have time to learn to use them. However, it is most certainly possible to recreate pigment painting techniques in Photoshop, even without the new brushes in CS5. If you know your way around photoshop at all, and already have some version of CS, it may be easier and less expensive to pursue painting in PS.  I have been doing so for years with reasonable success, to the point where some pigment artists were unable to discern that I had created my paintings digitally (which I take as a high compliment). Being new to these forums, I am not certain if it is ok to post a link to my work on a sales website, perhaps I can do that in a later post if I learn it is allowed. In any case just google something like "photoshop watercolor tutorial" or "photoshop oil painting tutorial". There are also many free brushes available that function like artists brushes rather than "stamps" you just have to search for them.
Hope this is helpful,
Barb

 Glad it worked for you and that I could be of help, being a newbie on this forum.

It is certainly possible to paint with a texture. These instructions are for CS2 but I know they work in earlier versions.

1. Open the file of the texture you wish to use.
2. Edit>Define Pattern
3. Open Pattern Stamp Tool (under Clone Stamp Tool)
4. Choose your pattern in the pattern choosing tool on the toolbar. The pattern you defined in Step 3 will be the last one in the list.
5. Choose whether you want the pattern Aligned or not
6. Choose a brush and start painting.

HTH,
Barb
BDT Studio