GIMP - GNU Image Manipulation Program (Free Photoshop Alternative)

[talan]

For those who cannot afford, dislike, etc Adobe products like Photoshop or Lightroom here's a free solution for you. It's open source so there's heaps of support and plugins for this FREE software.

GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/)

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc.

GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.
GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

GIMP Screenshots (http://www.gimp.org/screenshots/)
GIMP Features (http://www.gimp.org/features/)
GIMP Downloads (http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)

Feel free to give it a go. You don't really have anything to lose (unless you are already using Photoshop :p)

[David]

I use this, and there's plenty of guides around the net for noobs to figure out all the basic techniques. Very similar to Photoshop, you would be mad not to try it out before getting PS.

[shades]

I love GIMP, but still - with no CMYK support til version 2.10(at the soonist? the current stable version is 2.6) It is not the best thing to use on colour photographs if you intend to print them.