I have made a few things with GIMP but it's a pain in the butt to do. I didn't make banners, just very simple images, here is one I made:
Yep, there's a high learning curve for GIMP; I wonder if anyone knows everything it does, but for freeware, it can do almost anything. Every time I make something with it, I learn a better or easier way to do something that I typically have spend 3-10 times as long doing on the previous project. .
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