Graphics Program Recommendation???

I have been working with PHP for about a year and have developed a very functional website. Unfortunately I am NOT an artist and don't have the skills to produce some of the excellent graphics that I see on most "professionally" designed sites. The 3D buttons, live tabs, watermark backgrounds and integrated graphics elude me.

Corel Draw and other "high end" artist programs are over my head but some of the "so called" web design programs like Sirerra's are too primitive.

Can anyone recommend a graphics program or an editor that will give me a decent "professional" looking site without taking two years to learn how to use it?

Money is not a problem since my employer will pay for it although I tend to use open source products when available.

Of course something that integrates with PHP would be preferred.

Brian

Ok,

I do understand that some of those programs out there are pretty hairy, but I bet if you look back on when you started PHP, you thought the same about it. (if not about PHP, then Programming in general )

The one I use for most of my stuff is Adobe Photoshop. ( I know it's not Open Source, but there are reasons for everything ) The reasons I use it are quite simple. It's a very good program with many add-on features available, and, while most people don't think so at first, it's not a difficult program to learn -- just takes a little practice doing repetative tasks.

Here is a great site for Photoshop tutorials, and there are about 50,000 more where it came from.
http://www.eyeball-design.com

Best regards and good luck,
Travis.

I just realized that I never made a final posting to this thread.

The program that I found that gave me all the tools I needed was Macromedia Fireworks. It has done all of the tasks that I have asked of it so far and is excellent at creating repetative buttons with three dimensional attributes and doing it easily.

I also ended up with the Adobe programs too but the Firestarter had the best tutorials and was by far the easiest for a novice digital artist to use. Adobe may have more features for experts but Fireworks let me produce usable work immediately.

Trial versions are available from the Macromedia site.

I hope this note helps others who are looking to give their sites a professional appearance.

Brian Irwin

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PIRACY IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED.


JD