Spriting

I'm kind of looking at getting into spriting. I dunno, I'd just like to get into the whole deal, make some customs maybe. At least it'd give me something else to do at work.

I was going to look around for spriting programs on my own but then realized that the best place to start was probably here as we've got a few spriters in our ranks. Granted, I'm more than capable of searching for the stuff on my own, but I'd like to see what you guys have to suggest before I try anything.
Spriting... programs? Why, in my say, we only had TWO different colors, and we ENJOYED them.

All that you need to spriting is MSPaint, really. If you want a fancier program, you can do so, but Paint is really all that is necesarry. I personally use Photoshop, but whatever works for you.
I use Photoshop as well. If you're going to use Photoshop, be sure to keep Anti-Aliasing off at all times. And use the Pencil tool.
Bah.

I'm not a very good spriter, but I simply use paint.
I use Appleworks. It's like Paint's annoying little brother for the Mac.

It's awful. Even the horrible anti-aliasing thing it has going.
Paint is easier. If you want to use Photoshop, you gain really no advantages for spriting, but there are a lot of traps you have to avoid.

What you should do first is download and look at some game sprites. What makes them good? How are the built up?

and, if you want to avoid being flamed, don't just modify a game sprite and call it yours ^^;;
But of course! Hmm, yeah, I think I can do that. I never even thought of using MS Paint for some reason. I always thought that there were specific programs to use or something. Alright, good, that's something to start with. Thanks guys.

I'll probably be posting back here when I run into problems. Anything else I should know about?