For me there are three very critical criteria when it come to graphics manipulation software; first your level of skill and knowledge, second price and finally sophistication.
For my skill level and price my vote is CorelDraw 7. There are later versions but I was lucky to get 7 on Amazon.com for under a hundred dollars. The newer versions retail for over three hundred depending upon how many whistles and bells you want.
I like CorelDraw because it is a relatively powerful vectored graphics program with a very large library of copyright free artwork that can be broken apart and part or pieces can be extracted to build or augment a completely new graphic. There is also a very large font library, however, I do recommend that you purchase some font disk at any of the big box office supply stores or go online and download what ever you think that you’ll need.
In closing, CorelDraw takes a little getting used to but once you figure out some of the quirks, it is a very user friendly program that has allowed this modeler to produce custom decals for a variety of models ranging from military and airliner logos, railroad heralds, and instrument panels.
Radarider