What paint program are you using for flags?

[Rhomphaia]

I use Photoshop CS5. However, having said that, the flag I use the most is one that is wholly stolen from my youth: (and resized down from a copy I found in a google search)

http://ksp.necrobones.com/images/legoclear.png

Nostalgia hit me hard, Off to make a Hybrid LEGO/KSP rocket flag

[ZentroCatson]

I heard a lot of GIMP here. GIMP works on Mac, I have a Mac, but is it user-friendly or will I require a couple weeks of getting into it? I'll also try out Acorn and Pixelmator.

[EtherDragon]

paint.net

Free (donation recommended!)

[Hobbes Novakoff]

I heard a lot of GIMP here. GIMP works on Mac, I have a Mac, but is it user-friendly or will I require a couple weeks of getting into it? I'll also try out Acorn and Pixelmator.

Gimp... Not very user friendly. The controls take quite a bit of getting used to, and you'll certainly need to watch some tutorials.

[ZentroCatson]

I installed Acorn and did a flag now. Well, it's not as good as your flags, but it's better than my first flag. Here it is:

[katateochi]

depending on what OS I'm in, either photoshop CS5 or GIMP. more photoshop but that is because I grew up using it in windows before I was blessed by the penguin. I've also been tinkering with using inkscape for vector graphics (but I don't really know what I'm doing yet).

[TKO]

I installed Acorn and did a flag now. Well, it's not as good as your flags, but it's better than my first flag.

Excellent stuff. Try playing around with the curves tool (the one below the paint-bucket.) If you master that one you'll be able to make just about any curved line you want, but it will be so so smooth. ..And you can mix and match the tools you use - there are so many drawing programs on the Mac. I usually just switch to the one I know best for the task at hand. Even the bult-in preview app lets you paint - hit the toolbox icon to show its tools. There's a free picture app I used to use, called Graphic Converter 9 by Lemke Software. It's shareware, but they put no limit on when you have to pay. They even advertise on their webpage that you can use it as long as you want before paying for a license. Keep an eye on Pixelmator - sometimes they have some quite nice sale prices - it's very Photoshop-like, with a little more user-friendliness.

There's one I'd forgotten about called "Art Rage 2", developed by Art Rage. It's got many many paintbrush, crayon, and other real-world like brush options. If you want stuff to have a real-world painted/drawn look, that's its real strength, and it's only twenty bucks. Apparently there is even a Microsoft Paint like program called "Paint" by Soggy Waffles. Free too. (I haven't tried it, because I'm alergic to MS Paint.)

And if you like having an alternative pointing-device to a mouse (especially if you use computers a lot, and sometimes get a sore mousing-wrist like me), take a look at the wee Wacom Bamboo tablets. They're a great thing to switch to for general pointing duties (not just painting), and the pressure-sensitivity means you can do awesome painting tricks in apps like Acorn and Pixelmator. You'll also be able to draw freehand parachute ropes and stuff like that amazingly easy. (And you get a free Photoshop Essentials for both PC and Mac bundled with it.)