ORIGINAL: Ram Jet
I would play with Adobe Photoshop. I am in the same boat you are. A full blown Photoshop is very expensive. I have a "starter" version that came with my HP computer. I have only played with it a little but it's very promising in that you can enhance an image. I plan on buying some decal sheets from Sig and playing around with some images for my Oriental ARF.
Bill
Photoshop Elements is a reduced function version that sells for around $100. It is seriously limited by the couple of functions that are left out. The line drawing tool for example.
Paint Shop Pro (now sold by Corel) on the other hand is a full featured paint program that does everything and still sells for around $100. It's usually on sale for less. I've never paid over $40. It's advertised as a photo enhancing program, but all of them are. Some also do painting as well. And Paint Shop Pro does that superbly. And has an excellent line drawing tool as well as every other necessary paint function. All leading software packages will have the same functions available in that market, or they wouldn't be there. (Unless they traded on a name like Elements does, and not advertise what's missing. They bait you with the Photoshop name and then sell short.) In fact, PSP usually does most functions with less clicking and changing of options than Photoshop.