Welcome Mandy - you're going to love it here. As far as selecting a program, many come with free trials so check their web site. There are a lots of tutorials for all of them here and you can always ask questions in this forum. Regarding the texture, I've seen many pages from the talented folks on this site that look like you can reach out and touch them so it can be done - check the gallery and if you see something you can usually pm the poster for help. Look forward to seeing your LOs.

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Silly Would love to hear your feed back at My Gallery