Photoshop is a very powerful but complex and intimidating graphics program. I use Paint Shop Pro by JASC Software for all my web graphics. While slightly less powerful, PSP has all the coolest features of Photoshop and is MUCH more simple to use. Plus it's available for only $99 which is a fraction of the price of Adobe's products.

Bottom line: if you want a full-featured graphics program that's easy to use and inexpensive, you can't beat Paint Shop Pro. You can find out more about it at www.jasc.com. (And no, I don't work for JASC )