What are the best programs for designing website banners? Thanks!
Adobe Illustrator. Inkscape is decent though, and is free. It doesn’t do animation but IMHO that’s a plus. 
Personally, I’d say Adobe Photoshop rather than Illustrator, but that’s a matter of preference.
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And since “the best” is subjective indeed, I’m moving this from GQ to IMHO.
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[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:3, topic:654787”]
Personally, I’d say Adobe Photoshop rather than Illustrator, but that’s a matter of preference.
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Seconded. Illustrator can be a good general tool but it tends to be overused when better tools for a job are available. Web stuff is raster; use a raster tool.
I just downloaded Inkscape, so thanks for the hint.
I do have Photshop, which I got to do stuff for a conference (on their dime) but I find it almost incomprehensible - and I like command lines. Does anyone know a good book about it? I got Photoshop for Dummies, but I’m too much of a dummy. I’m not all that interested in retouching pictures, constructing banners is more like it, and I’d prefer something that says “you do this for this common task.”
I really don’t want to learn the entire theory of graphics to change the color of a simple object.
I use Photoshop mostly for creating things rather than modifying things. I was quite disappointed when I signed up for an all-day “comprehensive” Photoshop course a few years ago to hone my skills and they spent all but about a half-hour on photo manipulation.
Photoshop has amazing features for building images, vector manipulation, text manipulation, and so forth. Most of the books and classes ignore them, unfortunately.
You should look on Google for specific tasks to do with Photoshop instead of a general book on Photoshop. “embossed buttons photoshop” “website banners photoshop” “shadow cutouts photoshop” “reduce redeye photoshop” - stuff like that.
Gimp (perhaps even more incomprehensible than Photoshop 
) has a command line mode, though the command langauge is Lisp. :smack:
(I don’t need Gimp enough to spend the required learning, but if anyone stumbles on a good tutorial, or starting examples, I might try this.)
Graphics through a command line? The mind boggles.
I’d definitely recommend Photoshop. When I was first starting out with Photoshop it overwhelmed me with its multiple tools, menus and options, but the key to it finally clicking in my mind was understanding layers. Once I saw their power, the step-by-step of assembling a design made so much more sense.
Performing the same transformation on every frame of an animated gif repeating mouse actions rather than using macros? The fingers boggle.
I just use the Actions palette.
For PhotoShop instruction, try the Digital Tutors website. They have really very good instruction for dummies (self.)
Here’s the generic PS address: http://www.digitaltutors.com/software/Photoshop-tutorials
And here’s the introductory course address with a handful of free lessons: Browse courses by subject | Pluralsight