[tokkolo]

Paint Shop Pro and Adobe Photoshop are really good programs, but are rather difficult. If you can learn the programs you kan make beautiful graphics (with some inspiration)

Fireworks is easier to learn and you can make nice graphics with it too, but if you wan't something professional I would recommend Photoshop (rather then Paint Shop Pro, because there are a lot of tutorials about Photoshop). Fireworks can do the job, but some it lacks some of the effects that the other two have.