he Internet was all about plain text until the Web came along and, being the showoff that it is, started adding pictures to everything. Now just about every Web page out there has at least a few images here and there to liven things up, and some sites have nothing but images. Learning how to make pictures for your site is an important skill to master, but it's really not all that tricky once you've done it a few times.

There are a bunch of ways to make pictures for your Web site. Let's say that you want a nice picture of a stapler to liven up your Ode to Staplers page. The best thing to do is make it yourself so you won't have to worry about getting arrested for stealing someone else's work.

To make a graphic by hand, you'll need some kind of image production software. This is basically any program that allows you to draw or paint or mess around with pictures in any way. There are some programs that you can get for free - or cheap - to help you out with this. Just look through our Tools section to find one that works for you.

Then just fire up one of those puppies and draw a stapler. How hard could it be?