Jst looking for a recomendation of a good program to use to create
website buttons, logos and small word grahics. Something easy to use
and simple, nothing industrial strength. For an example of what I am
describing open the below 3 urls:

http://pics.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/half/site/button_buy.gif
http://ak.buy.com/buy_assets/buttons/btn_find_out.gif
http://www.capitalone.com/images/https-2.0/bttn_log_in.gif

These are all small gif graphics with nice 3D affects used as buttons
to link to webpages.

To give you another example of what I am seeking,  below I created on
my own gif graphic for my website:

http://superezauction.com/howitworks.gif

However they method I employ is far to time consuming, I create
Wort Art graphics in MSword then screen copy to MSpaint and save as a
gif, the results: inconsistent sizes and far to much time spent.

Please advise, thanks!

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 06 Dec 2005 09:46 PST

Photoshop!  They've got to be kidding!


Try this site:


http://cooltext.com/
Cool Text online graphics generator 


and let me know if it's useful for what you need.


pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by shaphanhawks-ga on 06 Dec 2005 17:49 PST

thanks a million to pafalafa-ga....... that all i really need! how i do pay you!

shaphanhawks-ga,

You're welcome a million.  Glad to hear that the CoolText site did the
trick...makes me glad I bookmarked it when I first stumbled across it.

By posting an answer here, I'll get paid for the question, so there's
no need for you to do anything at this point, although you're
certainly welcome to rate the answer, if you want to.

Cheers,

paf

You can use Photoshop to do all of your graphic needs.

Is it difficult to use photoshop for simple graphics and logos? thanks

Try PhotoImpact 11 from Ulead Systems.
It's most easy then Photoshop and have "too many" button effect to use.

and, you can download 30 days trial version.

http://www.ulead.com/pi/reviews.htm

Photoshop can be easy or difficult to use.  It's a complicated program
with lots of features, but the basic things are also very accessible.

That is if you want to draw, or crop, or apply certain filters.  That
said, photoshop is also an pretty pricey product and not necessarily
the ideal tool for logos.  A combination of illustrator and photoshop
is ideal for logos.

For something less industrial strength, I'd suggest paint shop pro. 
It's cheaper than photoshop, it's pretty good, and has a free trial so
you can determine for yourself if it is easy to use:

http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel3/Downloads/Trials

CoolText *is* a nice site, but it's a bit limited. It's actually a
web-enabled front end to The GIMP which is an open-source image
editing program popular on Linux but also, I think, available for MS
Windows

For a Windows package that will produce themed sets of buttons,
rollowver menus, logos etc, I suggest Xara Webstyle
http://www.xara.com/products/webstyle/