I'm new to it, too. I used PaintShopPro (lots of free plugins on the net) and then bought PhotoShop7. Both are supposed to be really good with abstracts -- but I'm still trying to learn how to use them. =)
in my opinion, the best thing you can do is get photoshop and learn how to use it really well. its the most powerful (... also the most expensive) and once your good at it, you can do miracles.
Get yourself a nice FULL version of ANY Photoshop program and MASTER it!!! Photoshop is the industry standard for editiing and composing images...and has all kinds of plug-ins (third party effects and filters) available both for free and software purchases...
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