what is the best software for textures?

So what is the best software to do textures in?

You will not get an objective answer to that question. The "best" software for me is not the best software for someone else. The big boys for texture making in SL are Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, and The GIMP. In order of cost, Photoshop is at the top of the heap (most expensive) and The GIMP is at the bottom (free). All three are equally as good as the other in making quality textures or art..........your experience with graphics software, it's functions, interface and "how too's" will dictate a lot of what you might need or want.

I use GIMP.

^^This. (^_^)

And, what kinds of textures are you referring to? Fabric for clothing? Construction materials? Nature? I ask because textures are more than mouse-to-screen. (^_^)

You may want to consider a decent digital camera, a flat-bed scanner, and possibly a graphics tablet. Creating your own source media is a great way to avoid DMCA issues and potential royalties that may result from using online content. (^_^)y

Blender or similar 3D applications.

Why? Because they let you bake photos, scanned images, logos, procedural textures, 3D geometry (buttons, grooves, cloth folds etc.), shadows and highlights straight onto the target without any visible seams. The target can be the avatar mesh, a sculpted prim, or simply a flat plane (if you want to create tileable surface textures).

Your brain, supported by years of practice.

If you don't have the patience to observe the way things look in RL and don't take the time to work very hard at your artistic skills, it really doesn't make much difference what graphics program you run in your computer. If you do spend a lot of time away from the computer trying to sketch what you see, you can probably get good results with any graphics program that can handle layers..... Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, or GIMP. The one you choose depends on how much money you're willing to spend and how many of each program's special features you are likely to use. If you are going to be doing a lot of clothing design, for example, it can be easier if you can do your texturing in 3D. Photoshop CS4 is the only one of the three that has that capability, but it's pricey.

If I were you, I'd find a friend with one or more of those programs, or Google for 30-day trial downloads, and experiment. When it comes right down to it, the "best" program is the one that you like the most.

One you can afford, that at least can save .tga format or png format and work with layers, and that you are comfortable using.

I prefer Photoshop. It's powerful and user friendly.

GIMP is free, but less intuitive on how to use it. Pretty powerful, though.

I believe GIMP is "less intuitive" only because Photoshop has entrenched itself as "the standard" of all image editing/creating software. Much has been written and discussed about Photoshop over the years and, since it's an expensive bit of software, it has extensive documentation as well as formal instructional classes or courses on it's use..........GIMP, being open source, does not have such resources (it's also quite a bit "younger" as far as photo/image editing software goes). GIMP's documentation is written primary by the geeks who developed the software..........it's really tough to read. The users of Photoshop pay for that documentation and education on it's use, the interface, how to call the functions of the filters with the purchase of the software.......$600 to $800 last I heard. But you can get some pretty darned good books on GIMP that make that "intuitiveness" a snap. It's different than Photoshop.........but it's really not that un-intuitive. Having to re-adjust all that intuition you gained from PS to GIMP would be a pretty high learning curve I would guess.......but it would be just as high for me going the other way .

A book for $20 to $50 on GIMP is a lot less than the price of Photoshop. You can get, arguably, the same powers and features for free plus the cost of a book as you can for getting the software and a book. A savings of up to $750.

In the end, it's what do you want to do. There are three excellent choices already offered for the OP. There is one more that is free too................Paint.NET from Microsoft. Not nearly as powerful as the other three but for making mesh clothing, textures or photos for uploading to SL it's more than enough.

Whatever you get to know first is the most intuitive. I found it difficult to get into PS after years of Gimp.
I still use Gimp. If it had grouping layers.....

Paint.net is not from Microsoft. The url is
http://www.getpaint.net

My mistake.......I posted from memory of the last time I was at the site some year or so ago. Here's the part that I got confused in my mind (copy and pasted from the page you linked):



"About
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool. It has been compared to other digital photo editing software packages such as Adobe® Photoshop®, Corel® Paint Shop Pro®, Microsoft Photo Editor, and The GIMP."