Free or Nearly Free Software

Painting and Image editing:

Gimp (link)

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
   It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything.

   GIMP runs on Linux, MS Windows and Mac OS X.

   GetPaint (link)

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

Windows Only

Office & Presentation: (presentation, Database, Drawing, Text, Spreadsheet compatible with MS office)

   OpenOffice (link)

OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite
www.openoffice.org/ - CachedA multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, free to download

Linux, Mac and Windows

   Libre Office (link)

LibreOffice is the free power-packed Open Source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. Support and documentation is free from our large, dedicated community of users, contributors and developers.

Linux, Mac and Windows

Illustration:

   InkScape (link)

An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Inkscape supports many advanced SVG features (markers, clones, alpha blending, etc.) and great care is taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more. We also aim to maintain a thriving user and developer community by using open, community-oriented development.

DTP (Desk Top Publishing):

   PagePlus (link)

The ultimate free desktop publishing software!

PagePlus Starter Edition is an amazing tool for designing fantastic print documents. This version is 100% free and is yours to keep so download it now and start creating fabulous documents!

Windows Only

   Scribus (link)

Scribus is an Open Source program that brings professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of press-ready output and new approaches to page design.
Underneath a modern and user-friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as color separations, CMYK and Spot Color support, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation.

Linux, Mac and Windows

As you can see there is really no need to steal Software

DPI Vs. Pixels

when building your first ad, be it for you local phonebook or newpaper there are a few things you'll want to know

Size: DPI= Dots per inch, Pixels are those dots. say your making a 3"x4" ad at 300 dpi, that is equivelant to 900x1200 pixels
         once you have this formula down you can make you ads using nearly any program, Paint Programs Generally use Pixels
         where DTP (Desk Top Publishing)software use's DPI

Color: RGB, CMYK, GRAYSCALE & B&W