Photoshop and Picasa

Im going to download the trial version of Photoshop to design my magazine OFC, contents and DPS (because I cant afford the real photoshop). I'm also going to experiment on Picasa. I'm going to download it to my netbook tonight and put up my experiment OFCs.

I'm also trying to find templates for things such as ripped out notebook pages and polaroid photos to mount my photos on. I'd like to put my poster previews onto a "background" before putting them on the OFC, otherwise it'd look unprofessional. Whilst searching, I came across a smashed glass effect that could be used on Photoshop. When I download it tonight, I'll see if it is possible to get that effect on the free 30 day trial version. I found some demos on how to use Photoshop and it's effects on google - I'll use these to help me, as I've never used Photoshop before.