How to Be a Mac Doller

Getting my MacBookPro has been one of the most eye-opening things I've done in my ten years of internetting. (Second to downloading mIRC way back in the day.) However, I had built up a very solid routine for my dolling habits on my windows desktop, so basically I had to relearn a lot of habits when I started using OSX fulltime. I'll share with you some of the tricks I've discovered or read about. As you go down the list, the chance that I use and love the program decreases appropriately, but don't let that stop you from trying them out, because what I like may not be identical to what you like :)

Software:

First things first, you will need to download some programs, if you haven't already! Some of these are free, some are sorta free, and some you have to pay for (but there are always alternatives).

Graphics Applications

Adobe Photoshop: Whether you have an Intel-mac or a Power PC mac, you can run the newest version of Photoshop (it's a universal binary!). It's just really expensivexD However, it is a beautiful program, and while dollers with older model MBPs will need to turn their fans up to about 5000 RPM, you can do anything with it.
The GIMP: The GIMP is free. Absolutely. However, you have to find your CDS/DVDs that came with your Mac and install X11. (First cd, put it in the drive, scroll down the window that comes open, Install Developer Tools, and delve through the checks until you find X11. If you have trouble, e-mail me.
That said, the GIMP has been in development for a long time to be a free alternative to Photoshop, so a lot of the features are similar, and unlike the Windows version you might have used, the mac version is very similar to the mac version of Photoshop. that's because gimp is the same, but photoshop has a different window setup on mac:] I haven't used it very much, but I do have it installed and can walk you through a lot of things.
Seashore: Seashore is a very scaled down version of the GIMP. In fact, they look nothing alike. However, you do not need x11 for Seashore, and all the important tools for dollers are in the program, however some of them have a very different nature :) I will try to help you as much as I can if you want to figure something out, but I've used this even less than I have the GIMP xD
Pixen: Don't get me wrong, but I really hate using Pixen xD. It's not the fact that it's exclusively a pixel art program, I just can't master the interface xD Anyways, if you're a tool shader, steer clear of this one :) It is also a free download.
Paintbrush: I have not tried this program out. Its info page says it's about on par with MS Paint, so I imagine a scaled down version of the scaled down Seashore :]

HTML Editors

TextWrangler: To be honest, I had to google 'osx text editors' to have another entry to this list. TextWrangler is everything I need in an html editor and more than I knew when I downloaded it. You have line highlighting, syntax highlighting, line numbers, REGEX in your find and replace, you can save in several different file encodings (besides file types!), and best of all, it interfaces with my favorite FTP program :] They have a pay-for version, but I honestly have no reason to buy it.

Taco HTML Edit: As I mentioned before, I have not used this program, but apparently it has a built-in preview, that sounds pretty great:D