When you are an experienced Web author (meaning that you have put up several pages and at least a few graphics that you copied from someone else), you may be ready to start making your own graphics. There are lots of programs available to do this. Most are expensive (over $500.)
In the courses and discussions I've seen, many people use Paint Shop Pro. It is shareware and costs about $100. Various tutorials are available for it. It is used by a number of the authors in the Graphics Ring and some tutorials can be found there. It is also used by most of the instructors at VU and ZDU who teach about graphics.
I have used it in only a limited way so far, so don't depend on me for help. But it looks to me as if I spent about four hours going through one of the tutorials, I could learn quite a lot.
Here is a nice short description and comparison of the various formats of Web graphics http://bignosebird.com/losewait.shtml
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Mary Parker. Last updated on October 10, 1998.