What's a water cooler for a PC, is it worth it?

Whats an easy paint prog. to use to trace photos on your pc, & turn pix into painting,paint water sky grass?

• I have MS and in a wheelchar, so I sit here in front of my computer all day. I used to paint w/ acryllics, so I thought I might enjoy painting photos. I tried to find one on the web, but one says "this one" is a good, the next one says it isn't. I'm looking for something I can start painting with that I don't have read a book first to use. That I can trace over a photo, paint it, and then remove it off of the actual photo & print, and not over top of the photo itself. I found one called Art Weaver, but it'll take me a month or two of research first to use it. Is there an easer one maybe I could download & try out first that's between $20- $75

• Answer:

  Art Weaver and forum, http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version http://www.artweaver.de/forum/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=c478a47c142093a15879898e050a9816 from what i'm understanding is either that you want to trace image off screen, to paint with acrylics, no? ... if for this i would suggest a program that converting raster images to vector outlines, linetracer, http://linetracer.sourceforge.net/ http://www.wintopo.com/ http://www.masternewmedia.org/2004/02/28/autotracing_how_to_convert_bitmaps.htm then you could trace or print out then transfer to canvas, note that there may be canvas paper rolls that you can print on and paint on layer, http://www.image65.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1876 http://www.databazaar.com/Inkjet_Cartridge/Product/Specialty_Paper_EPSSP91220.html or use the program itself to paint an image over the photo in background, but on a separate layer, correct? ... if this then art weaver would be ok , any program that uses layers, will do, but may not be so easy to manipulate, others you could try are art rage, note demo has no layer option, but you could try it, http://www.ambientdesign.com/artragedown.html and would be easier to use with wacom type tablets, and now has cintiq, on screen tool, but not cheap yet, http://www.wacom.com/index2.cfm there is also gimp and photobie that have layers, http://www.gimp.org/ http://www.photobie.com/ now what it is with the layers, i'm assuming you want to paint over image on new layer, so with art weaver or other, you would open image, then select all of background photo, copy, then paste over top, or duplicate layer, now with some software there are filter effects, that find outlines or find edges, for art weaver it would be similar to stylize / sketch filter,or using image levels or threshold adjustments, then once you have outlines, you can copy that layer by it self and paste to new image, save for later, adobe illustrator now has raster to vector ability, yet cost wise, not what you're looking for ...