Hi all! First post on this websites! Seem to be a lot of resources!

I finally have the time to open the box of my Wacom Bamboo and I will hopefully have some time to thinker with it. This mean that I am now the owner of corel painter and photoshop element 6.0.

I am curious as to which software I should use to dabble and invest the most time into for doing maps and other piece of works for my SW RPG campaign. As far as I know, my options are those three software:

  • Gimp
  • Photoshop element 6.0
  • Corel Painter


From I have seen at the moment:

GIMP: Good and powerful software. The plug-in community could potentially solve it shotcoming. Lack the the ease of use of photoshop and some good tool such as circle and rectangle.
Photoshop element 6.0 : Powerful and convivial tool. Has some issue with the fact that the element version isn't as powerful as the full version. The plug-in have potential but you need to pay for.
Corel Painter: Great things to reproduce a painting, lack flexibility and lack a lot of the most basic options, including layers.

So any thought for a newb?