Images? How? Best Practices?

I gave up on the images module because the latest one had so many errors with the latest version of Drupal. The last I could not work out, where ImageMagick needed a path to a "convert.exe" program. I've looked at the module and all the support and documentation I see no mention of having to install a 3rd party program or where to go to find it? Anyway, I've posted a request for further info in the support area of that module, but I thought I'd expand on it in the Post Install forum too.

I've dedicated a week now into installing and getting to grips with Drupal. I'm using multiple resources from Drupal.org to LeanByTheDrop.com to YouTube videos. I'm quite proud of myself because I already have a site going.

But I'm I'm surprised that complete lack of info, or at last, hard to find info, regarding Views and Images. From what I can tell Views, Images, and the CCK should be part of the Core. I'm speaking as a newbie, I just can't imagine creating a site without images and therefore a simple way of including them in Pages or Stories should be obvious.

Again, I'm a total newbie and I'm both impressed and daunted by drupal. Right now I just need to figure out how to add images simply to posts, so perhaps there is another way of doing that? I'm not sure it's relevant but I installed XStandard as an WYSIWYG editor because what I read said it was the best for creating standards based code. I can add images simply through there by putting them and a folder and using the URL. But in the long run I want to allow users to upload images and even create galleries, so I figure there has to be a better solution?

You're thoughts are appreciated...