I was looking for a drawing program for Windows. Was it coral draw you were thinking of ?

Have you looked at Visio ?

Depends what you want to do and what the finished product is going to be used for, but in very general terms there are two major distinctions - whether you need to work with raster images or vector images.

Raster images are bitmaps, when you zoom in on them you get down to the level of individual pixels.  Photo retouching and image editing for webpages would be good examples of a use case for raster images.

Vector images are made up of lines and curves - you typically don't lose any image quality by enlarging a vector graphic, which makes them ideal for corporate logos or reproduction in a variety of media.  I would guess that almost all of the websites that will print custom designs on t-shirts, coffee cups or hats require that you submit your artwork in a vector file format.

For raster images, the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) is free and available for a number of different platforms.  It doesn't offer all the features of the commercial image creation and editing packages but it does have a lot of useful stuff.  It's probably a good place to start if you've never used this kind of software before and particularly before you go and shell out a lot of money for a professional software package.

Inkscape is free software that can be used to create and edit vector graphics, I haven't used it so I can't speak for its usefulness, but again, it's probably a good place to start if this is the kind of drawing software you're looking to learn about.

I have just installed Inkscape and it looks great. Seems to be a lighter version of Coral Draw but as Stephen says a good place to start.

Photoshop has limits ?  wow, you are certainly very talented....

just read an article about paint.net and it seems very interesting if you're still looking for a software.   

I've used Inkscape for about a year now. I find it very easy to use, and FREE. It's a vector image program, which means that everything you create is scalable, because it remembers the components rather than just pixels. 

Once you've installed it, just look for some tutorials on YouTube and you'll get the hang of it in a few hours.

If you're looking for a photo imagery program, try GIMP. It's also free. 

To clarify: Inkscape is the alternative of Adobe Illustrator, GIMP of Photoshop.

Hey, Thanks for all your help its much appreciated. I have coral draw, but find it very heavy on pc memory... i shall try one or two of the others. I usually use LR4 its easier to use than photoshop. But i would like to be more creative with not only my photographs, but also with art.

Thanks again .