Best photography magazine for an amateur?

I want to learn techniques, be inspired by pictures, and just want to learn more about photography in general. What is a good magazine for these things and not too expensive?

popular photography is pretty good. I would suggest going to your local library and looking at stuff for free....

Grimes wrote in post #8248667
popular photography is pretty good. I would suggest going to your local library and looking at stuff for free....

I will try my crappy local library.

Practical Photography

The English magazines are rather expensive in the States and you can only get them at the major chains, but I think they are better sources overall for brand new amateurs than any of the American magazines. They "package" the information in a more easily accessible format.

But of American magazines, I would by far rate the newly revised Peterson's Photographic as the best for new amateurs. It's new concept is exactly that premise: A teaching magazine for new amateurs.

All of the magazines tend to repeat basic information from year to year, so some time spent browsing the last couple of years of Popular Photography in your library will tell you pretty much everything the next couple of years would tell you, as far as basic shooting information is concerned.

The best magazines come from the UK. Digital Camera and Digital SLR are 2 of the ones I found to be the best. Borders and Barnes n Noble carry them but they are expensive. They do come with CD's with some goodies on them. Biggest gripe from subscribers is that eventually they have to repeat the same material over and over. Can't be helped really.