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THE GIMP. The best thing about The Gimp, it's free. It's almost as powerful as  Photoshop almost and has an excellent interface with some great features at no extra cost.

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PHOTOSHOP. More than a photo and painting programme it's a way of life. If you create graphics for money there is none better. There  is no wrong way to use Photoshop because it is so versatile. Comes with a professional price tag.

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PAINTSHOP PRO. The poor mans Photoshop. Has taken a giant leap forward from being a good file converter to a respectable graphic tool. It just gets better and better!
The layers palette was a stroke of genius. Has a good selection of filters.

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VISUAL QUICKSTART GUIDE. © For about the same price as Dummies or Idiot's you get 3 times the information with clear diagrams. Takes you to the next step once you straighten out the learning curve.

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GUI STUFF. Has a wide variety of resources for building web sites with lots of free groovy graphics.

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MOHO. Builds 2D spline based animations. Create your own South Park cartoons. You need to add sound via a separate programme like ABC VideoRoll. Fully functional trial version available.

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ANIMATION MASTER. Construct 3D spline/patch based character animations. Has an excellent constraint system for character controlled rigs. Gives you the tools to create your own "A Bugs Life".

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EXPRESSION. Vector based / illustration software which creates (natural media) painting effects. Has the added advantage of editable vector files. Formerly Fractal Design.

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XARA. Not a paint programme but vector based drawing / illustration software. Very fast and flexible. Nice minimalist interface with excellent transparency effects and blends.
Formerly CorelXARA.

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POV-RAY. The original ray tracing, nuts and bolts software. IDE style interface. Is well documented with links to tutorials, plug-ins and macros.

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RHINOCEROS. This product has been used to model CD players, headphones, boats,, helmets, computers, a violin, a washing machine, a wooden clock, jewellery, mobile phones, sports cars, buses and lots more. Start with a sketch, then use this program to accurately build a model ready for rendering, animation, drafting or engineering.

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HAMAPATCH. Visual spline / patch based modeller for POV-Ray. You can output to Blue Moon Rendering Tools or POV-Ray from the GUI interface.

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BREEZE DESIGNER. Visual polygonal modeller for POV-Ray and other formats. You can see the render take form with the GUI interface.

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IRFANVIEW. Excellent image and animation viewer / converter. Includes image processing, batch and slideshow features.

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ZPAINT. If you need a button fast for your web page ZPaint can construct them in any shape or size. Also makes fat free donuts.