Which Graphics software? Argh!

Should give it another shot - in the last few years, PSP has really came into its own. I own both it and PS (Yay for student discounts), and I still use PSP for the vast majority of my light-to-moderate work.

There's one thing I really like about Blender. Most mouse movement functions have a keyboard toggle to "start" and "set" them so that you don't have to hold down a mouse button. For example, grab. Select your points or edges or polygons, press the GKEY and move the mouse. No need to hold the left or right mouse button while you move and carefully position your selection.

Why is this important? Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The mouse is so much less a torture device when you don't have to hold the damned buttons down.

Like most open source software, the biggest problem with Blender isn't the interface. Other than the file dialog there wasn't anything I particularly hated about it. The biggest problem is documentation. The most well-regarded tutorial (the noob to pro thing) is total crap compared to even the most mediocre commercial tutorial. It starts out with too many cooks and progresses to more and more incomplete tutorials. It took me three weeks to slog through that thing, more because I dreaded it than anything else.

The communal approach is clearly not the way to write documentation, but Blender is a program for which you absolutely must have documentation. You must slog through that tutorial because Blender is so much easier to deal with if you understand what you are doing. If you simply try to follow button-press instructions, you *will* end up in the wrong mode or with the cursor in the wrong place and you will not know why things aren't working.

There is an up-to-date blender book out now:

http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/product_info.php?products_id=96

I own it but can't say how good it is because I've moved on to LightWave. While I'd call GIMP a 60% solution, I'd say Blender is an 80% solution. Probably the best open source graphics program out there, but still not commercial quality.

I am learning more and more about Blender, and have crafted a very nice Hawaiian fishhook for myself. The problem comes when I try to take any object from Blender to SL. I have successfully crafted the martini glass from one of the tutorials, and one other simple shape. I have then failed to import anything other than mutant twisty squares. I've fiddled with the scripting, to tell SL what shape is underlying the piece, but no luck.

Intuitive? Blender reminds me of what Anthony Bourdain said about iguana tamales: "I wanted to gouge my eyes out, stick my head in a bucket of lye, and jump off a cliff." I've managed to learn Photoshop, Bryce, and Illustrator well enough to design my parents' new house on it. Blender? PWNED!

Granted, I'm a Mac user. In my universe I would design my object, and then one of Blender's 8,249 buttons would say "EXPORT TO SL."

Ah, well.

Im fairly new to SL also and learning to make clothes! After checking out a bunch of programs I decided to save my money and get GIMP, partly because its free, and I tried it out its easy to use and lots of help online, even found several sites that give you cool lookin brushes for free.. Found one with antique lace brushes that rock... That gives me more money to spend on tons of stuff I dont need in SL .. haha

Given your price range, then Paint Shop Pro is the way to go. It has a lot of the features that Photoshop has and it costs a lot less.

Imo, PSP 7.3 had the best interface of all the PSPs. You can probably find it on Ebay for under $60. But, it doesn't work on Vista - for that you'll need the newest PSP (11?).

Reaph, Software of anytype should be designed so that you can figure out how it working in five minutes. Anything else is porr coding and arrogance. Programs are built for people who aren't coders to use. If you wish to expend the energy to use those programs, great.
Most people don't have the skill or time to expend on obtusely designed UIs or backward coding. That is why there are industry standards. Gimp or Blender are nowhere near that. Pick up a 3d mag. Inside you will see Maya, 3d max, cinema 4d etc. (yes they are way expensive)
And then there is Photoshop mags and corel painter mags.
Gimp isn't even considered fast food program.
I was poorly designed as a college class program and then tossed out into the wild as open source.

Good UI programing: Rokuro
Bad: Gimp, Blender etc

But it is your choice.

Blender's UI is a little unique in that it's designed pretty much exclusively at the experienced user. Until you put the time in to learn it and see whether it really does let you work faster than a more conventional interface, it's hard to judge whether it is a "bad" one or not. Unintuitive absolutely, but "bad" I'm not sure. Take something like G to grab then moving mouse and left clicking to accept or right to cancel, compared to clicking to grab and holding mouse button while moving and releasing to accept.. How do I cancel? Which is most RSI inducing - constant pressure holding buttons or the odd tap? Is Blender really bad or is it the "industry standard" that is?

I run both Windows and Linux. I started with Paint Shop Pro quite a few years ago, I always swore by it, I tried Photoshop a few times but always ended up going back to PSP, Photoshop seemed way too complicated. However, after chatting to some people who convinced me that Photoshop was leagues ahead, I sat down one day and tried my hardest to learn Photoshop. I haven't used PSP again properly since. PSP is fine to start out with but if you can afford Photoshop there is no point in using anything else in my opinion. It really isn't difficult to use at all, the only problem is the price. Whenever I try to create graphics in Linux using The GIMP, I always find myself booting back into Windows and using Photoshop instead, the GIMP doesn't compare in my opinion.

So, if you can afford it use Photoshop. If you can't afford Photoshop then go for Paint Shop Pro, if you have just recently filed for bankruptcy use The GIMP (slight exaggeration perhaps).

/nod

to me, a steep learning curve means a lot of effort to do very basic things. But obviously for the guy who thinks steep should be easy, his graph isn't using effort and results but time and results.

For me, I always view it as effort to learn the basic skills of a product. The more effort for those skills, or the more skill you need to do basic stuff, the steeper the learning curve.

Btw, I use gimp, never touched photoshop, and I'm finding it horribly painful. But free is what counts for me.

I found Blender very interesting to learn, as far as I got. I was able to make some very neat objects with it. Getting those objects out of Blender and into SL was the problem (I'm a Mac user-- no exporters waiting to help that I've found). I've managed workarounds in-world using prims. Yes, the 0.01 limit can be blasted around.

In a month I'll be back in the embrace of my other computer and Photoshop. I don't have enough time, patience, or brain cells left to learn another free program.

Industry standard is decided by the Industry at large, on what they buy and why. They bought PS. The guy who created Blended hated PS. So he built a new program.
I have no issue with that. I take issue with people promoting it as superior because it is free.
Free for this is get what you pay for. Its like the $5 rolex.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for better and worse determined how moden computing works. Until we move into the 3d computing environment, they will still dictate it. This guy isn't.
I am glad you enjoy the program but my opinion still stands.

I'm going to have to disagree. Don't buy any PSP below 9. Compatibility with photoshop plug ins is worse, fewer tools, etc. It's only with 9 that I've really started to suggest PSP as a "realistic" alternative. Before that it was definitely usable, but there were some serious gaps in the feature set.

Yes your opinion is always yours.

http://www.blender.org/blenderorg/blender-foundation/history/

How saying I happen to like it's interface and pointing out a few reasons why it might actually be considered a good one translates into me being the "guy" trying to dictate how modern computing works beats me. If anything, I'm saying don't be dictated too, check out the options for yourself.

So much for "But it is your choice." eh?