I would like to start painting in photoshop.

[Paul D]

What do i need? I would like to start painting in Photoshop but i am not familiar with the hardware requirements, more precisely, i find it hard to draw with a mouse. What is the hardware component that i need to replace the mouse in order to have better control on the cursor? Something with a pen and a board...

[MEGHANADA]

Photoshop is not a software which is designed to draw pictures. It is to edit photos only. You can use coraldraw to draw. You have to get familiar to its style. Drawing by using a paint brush is completely differant from drawing by the mouse. Its a differant unique system. But still you can find a device which is similar to a pen which you can use insted of a mouse in a computer accesorey shop.

[hartley8184]

Photoshop is not a painter. It's a photo editor. Have you thought about Corel Painter? Photoshop is now bundled into Adobe Creative Suite 2 (CS2) , and CS3 is about to come out. CS2 contains all the adobe art software and all the web design software, like 7 different programs. The package is about $1100 for premium and about $900 for standard (w/o web design). If you're a student, you might be able to purchase the educational version for about $450 through your school. If you just want to paint, you can get a used copy of Photoshop, or Adobe probably still sells the later versions stand alone. As far as hardware, you need a tablet (pen and board). They aren't too expensive. But, it's the peripheral for drawing and painting. To run CS2, you need a Pentium 3 or 4, about 1 gig of harddrive and at least 384 megs of Ram, but the more the better. I've got 2 gigs of RAM. You need Windows XP with service pack 2. And, you really need a nice monitor with all the bells. Check out the adobe website.