So, I'm trying to start manipping, and I had some questions for veteran manippers and mods.

1. What software do you recommend? I'm currently just using Slides and Gimp for my personal ones.

2. When posting manips, do you need the artist's express permission? Or do I just need to credit them? Just checking because I don't want to steal anyone's art.

3. Lastly, other than the obvious ones, like bad grammer, too small text, and barely legible words, are there any common pitfalls and no-nos to watch out for when starting to manip?

1. as someone that makes manips (yes i am still planning on making them) i would recommend photopea as it's free and doesn't require a major in graphic design

2. as long as you put the original artist's tag it should be fine

3. if you're going to make a colored backgroung for the text make sure that the text color and the background color are very contrasting, it makes for better readability and if you put a black outline it could make the letters have some depth to them

1. Any program works really, if you're just doing text captions then you can go even easier with something like paint.net if you can't get your hands on photoshop.

2. As long as the original artist is tagged and the image source is used as the post's source then things should be fine. Just take note that you shouldn't ever cover up the original artist's signature or make yours way more prominent.

3. As jigiyak mentioned contrast is very important, personally I'd recommend you search for manip or caption and add sort:score to see the most popular ones on the site, then take notes on how they handle text specifically.

One thought I have as to point three: I try to decide what eyes to use based on the style of the image.
If it is a more cartoon-ish image you can use things like spiral eyes, kaa eyes and ring eyes.
If the image is drawn in a more realistic style maybe use things like shrunken irises, empty eyes, or even whitewash eyes.