Computer software to make logos/edit pgotos?

Astaroth

GIMP is very good and probably only second to Photoshop (which costs £500)

I personally never really got on with PSP (in the many versions I used) as it tried to be much more than it was and failed - if it had said it was a basic package and only did basic things then I would have much more respect for it.

Whilst it isnt a good program for photo editing Fireworks is a reasonable program for greating graphics (esp for the web) and may be worth looking into - possibly with GIMP too for the photo editing tasks

Iffy'swifey

OK, I managed to install the software and I now have two boxes up on my screen, one called "The GIMP", the other "Layers, Chennels, Paths..." and frankly I don't know where to start. I don't even know how to select an image to start working on or how to do anything. I'm VERY new to this, have never used any kid of photo editing tool before. Are there instructions with it? It all seems very complicated to me.

Astaroth

As a top flight package GIMP is not the easiest package to learn (and in my opinion is slightly more difficult than Photoshop)

If you go to the window called "the gimp" it should have all the tools on it. Click File, then select Open and you can then choose which file you want to be editing (or click file -> new if you are starting something from scratch). Either way a new window will open which has the actual workspace/ image.

Many pro designers will use 2 monitors - one has all the tools/ layers/ histograms etc on it and the second has the actual image - which is why GIMP seperates everything into different windows