It's recommend to use The Gimp, but after a while I decided to confine to more experienced users. If that's you, and you are patient enough to learn the product's occasional "quaint" ways, then you may not need to consider anything else. If you are accustomed to Photoshop, you might like to look at GIMPShop, which changes the user interface of GIMP to something more familiar, though frankly, I prefer the original.
For other less experienced users there is Paint.net, an amazingly sophisticated piece of work from computer science students at Washington State University. It's not quite as powerful as The Gimp, but it's a lot easier to use and install. It's also getting better; the new V3 beta continues this product's impressive development record. However, V2.x is for Windows 2000 only, while V3 requires XP SP2. You will also need Microsoft's bulky .NET framework installed on your PC.
Another possibility is PhotoPlus 6.0 from a company called Serif . It's an impressive piece of work; it installs easily and it's loaded with features, including layer support. In fact, it looks and feels like a "lite" and slightly clunky version of Adobe PhotoShop. Note: You need to register with your email address to get PhotoPlus, and you may receive promotional material as a result.
Recently, a new French product called PhotoFiltre become available in a number of languages, including English, and ( for a digital editor) is a tiny 1.6MB download. Like PhotoPlus, it looks and works like an old version of PhotoShop. It can read and save files to JPEG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PNG, RLE, and comes with an impressive range of tools, brushes and filters. However, it can't handle layers. That said, it offers a lot of functionality for a small program.
The GIMP
Website: http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/
Author:
Date: 02/18/2008
Version: 2.4.4
Download File size: 15MB
License: GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991
Operating systems supported: Windows 2k,XP,2003,Vista
64 Bit Capable: n/a
Portable version available: no
Other languages supported: yes
Additional Software Required: no
Paint.net
Website: http://www.getpaint.net/
Author:
Date: 02/18/2008
Version: 3.22
Download File size: 1.6MB
License:.Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License
Operating systems supported: Windows 2003/XP/Vista
64 Bit Capable: yes
Portable version available: no
Other languages supported: no
Additional Software Required: .NET Framework 2.0
PhotoPlus
Website: http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PhotoPlus/default.asp
Author:
Date: 02/18/2008
Version: 6 Download File size: 19.5MB
License: Requires registration
Operating systems supported: Windows 2000/2003/XP
64 Bit Capable: n/a
Portable version available: no
Other languages supported: no
Additional Software Required: no
PhotoFiltre
Website: http://photofiltre.free.fr/
Author:
Date: 02/18/2008
Version: 6.3.1
Download File size: 1.6MB
License: Freeware
Operating systems supported: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista
64 Bit Capable: n/a
Portable version available: no
Other languages supported: no
Additional Software Required: no