pixelmator pro is a great choice for mac

I've always been just a dabbler with Paintshop-style programs, but Pixelmator Pro is a pretty great, friendly tool, and for $40 is a worthy upgrade over the free version.

I especially dig "magic erase" and smart select tools. Here's me recreating an effect I first saw at the Second Line Brass Band website:

The new Select Subject tool got confused by the horn, understandably enough, but with the smart select it was easy to duplicate the main layer, use smart select to paint over the background and then delete, and then turn the background layer into B+W.

Maybe I should hunt down some tutorials, there's a lot this software can do. I've never gotten my head around tools for making vector graphics, it might be a good segway into that.