Does anyone have any recommendations on what software/paint programs are best for this? Also, is there a tutorial somewhere to explain how to do it? With all these new PAI paint kits, I really have the itch to learn this. Thanks!

I haven't visited here, but this is a page just devoted to this:http://avsim.com/hangar/flight/tutorials/(They are an AVSIM partner).Photoshop is the king of paint programs, although there are many cheaper and adequate alternatives. The freeware GIMP program looks quite robust and functional (however, as someone who has been with Photoshop since the beginning, it's hard for me to recommend anything else).

I've been using Photoshop for years (ever since version 2.5) I used GIMP for a little while about a year ago, but it just got so annoying. The X-Windows interface takes a lot to get used to, and GIMP 1.3 unfortunately crashes extremely often. I was not able to do anything really useful with it without it crashing every few minutes.

Paint shop pro 7 is for me the nicest program and has very nice easy to use tools.Anniette xxxxxxxxxx