Best Way To Study Chess Openings

Good thread, good advice!  Thank you folks, I need to improve every aspect of my game too.

1 c4 is not always English it can transpose as well into 1 d4!

1 d4 d5 2 c4 is the same position as 1 c4 d5 2 d4 

I'm mostly a 3 day correspondence player here and obviously you need some opening resources or you get killed.  I use a couple of databases certainly but even in 3 day, it's amazing how early and often I'm taken out of book.  Without van der Sterren's FCO, I wouldn't have a clue as to what to do.  I do a crash course on every opening I come across just so I have an idea of what my overall goals should be.  If I kind of know what the general plans for each side should be, then at least I have a shot at understanding what my approach should be when my opponent is quickly out of book.  Sometimes it's someone who clearly is just "winging" the opening and I feel kind of bad if my research shows a line that leaves me clearly superior.  Mostly though I just have to figure it out.  I'm making no conscious attempt to memorize my research yet although I'm clearly learning the main lines for some of the most popular openings this way.  It's really too early for me to even settle on a repertoire yet; I just don't have enough experience under my belt.

Of course if anyone is going to ignore all the good advice here and actually try to memorize a bunch of openings Chessking has a great piece of software for around $25 called Chess Openings What you Need TO Know.  Steps through hundreds of the most common openings and their variations with explanations almost as profound as FCO.  Will even play through a few selected games for each opening.  It's a standalone program so you don't need the main Chessking program to run it and the interface is pretty intuitive.  Of course I have the whole package-Chessking, 3 levels of tactics, endgames, openings and strategy, but spending $140 at one time is obviously not for everyone.  Wonderfully idiosyncratic, but the training exercises are there and even a neoLuddite like myself can figure out how to use it.

lol