I have wanted to do it for a couple years now. I tried this and that program, from MS Paint to Paint Shop Pro to Adobe Photoshop, and now I'm using The Gimp, which is almost exactly like Photoshop as far as I can tell. I've never had any instruction on these programs and the manuals for PSP and Photoshop are both jibberish to me. Anyway, I just want to do some basic editing. Specifically to start off I'd like to know:
-->How I can make certain parts of an image transparent (How can I simulate using a paint brush that colors transparentness) OR how can I crop a freehand part of an image (the rest of the required space of the image would be filled with transparency)
-->How do I insert a part or entirety of one image into another?
If you're not using The Gimp just give me an idea of how it's done; or give me directions for how to do it on Photoshop, I can probably figure it out.

Lastly, if anyone knows of any good tutorials that assume no knowledge of image editing programs, could you please point me to them?

Thanks a lot.

Chose the color you wish to be transparent and then choose transparify... This however will transparify that color throughtout the entire image... If there are sections which contain that color that you do not want transparent, change the shade slightly by adding/subtracking one from the hexidecimal value....

.....Willy

Hmm can't find anything called transparify...
Any other ways? And does anyone know how I can do the splicing part? (add one image into another) I know it has to do with layers but I still don't know how...

Depending on the shape of the image (or part of an image) that you want to place on another, you could use the lasso tool. Open the image you want to cut from, make a selection around it with the lasso tool, then go to Edit>Cut. Open up the image you're pasting to and (you guessed it) Edit>paste. If you've got the pasted image on its own layer (which I think PS will automatically do) you can then use the layer mask to get rid of any rough spots. Make sure your foreground color is black #000000, then just use the paint brush of your choice. Badda-Bing.