I'll looking for some help on making web graphics. I'm trying to make a title for a web page and it's just not turning out right. It looks fine in the graphics program (the new MS Acrylic beta - hey, its free) but when I save as either a jpg or gif, it loses something in the translation. When I put it on my page it is very rough and the transparency part is not looking good either.

So I guess what I'm asking for is either a tutorial that will help explain what I need to do and maybe a good (and cheap) graphics program.

Thanks

Probably the best full featured, and cheap (Free) graphics program, is Gimp.
There are a lot of tutorials for it on the internet, just Google Gimp tutorials.
If that's not what your looking for, you can find other free graphics programs here:
Freeware Replacements For Common Commercial Apps

If you have Open Office , it has a full range of tool that make it easy to make web pages. My thirteen year old daughter uses it for creating and modifing her pages.
It's not a stand alone FrontPage, or Dream Weaver replacement, but it's fairly easy to use and if you already use it the learning curve is low.
I hope this helps.