Best "FREE" photo editing program?

[Hard and Confused]

Outta curriousity, from personal experience. What is the best FREE photo editing program that you guys/gals know of?

 

[madFive]

GIMP

Only one I know of, off hand.

 

[Pylon]

I also use GIMP and find it decent.

 

[Jordan1]

I like Paint.NET.

 

[ManchesterManson]

Another vote for GIMP here.

 

[rumarudrathas]

Paint.NET if you need something very user-friendly. GIMP is a lot more robust, even to the point of it being a worthy Adobe Photoshop contender. I know that there is an old GIMP packag called GIMPshop that mimics a lot of Adobe PS' menu hierarchy and labeling, if you're interested in that.

 

[iGamer]

I like Paint.NET.

This!

While Gimp is great, Paint.net will do the majority of stuff you'll ever need, but is easier to use.


http://getpaint.net

 

[prodigee]

Photochop if you catch my drift

But really I would probably say GIMP its the only one I have personally tried, but I like it.

 

[sirsnits]

gotta pimp the GIMP

 

[tybert7]

irfanview

http://www.irfanview.com/


....


(shields self from rock pelts from posting viewing software with light editing abilities)

 

[obobski]

tybert, thats actually a neat find, and is probably suitable for more than the majority of what the average user needs (resize, convert, etc)

if not that, gimp (as has been said so many times before)

just as another thought, if you're a starving college student, you might look into Corel's application suite, its usually massively discounted if your uni knows whats what (and if you're a college student, and your uni is eligible for Dreamspark, you can get MS Expression 2 for free through that, it includes a photo editor as well)

 

[450]

If you have a .edu email, you can use Dreamspark.

Also, for some reason I find GIMP easier to use than Paint.net.

 

[fg1coupe]

GIMP.

 

[fusionrs]

For basic stuff Picasa works well...
http://picasa.google.com/

 

[Brucey69]

Yea, I would suggest GIMP as well.

 

[KodiakStar]

I don't think anyone here has mentioned it before.

GIMP.

 

[LR2]

I never liked GIMP. PAINT.NET all the way!

 

[Eva_Unit_0]

Paint.NET if you need something very user-friendly. GIMP is a lot more robust, even to the point of it being a worthy Adobe Photoshop contender. I know that there is an old GIMP packag called GIMPshop that mimics a lot of Adobe PS' menu hierarchy and labeling, if you're interested in that.

GIMP does rock (I use it on all of my systems at home), but it's missing one huge feature that means it could never replace photoshop (at least in a publishing setting): proper CMYK support. There are CMYK plugins for gimp, but I haven't seen any that are robust enough to be trusted in a production environment.

Of course, if all you're doing is web-based stuff then RGB is all you need.

 

[leSLIe]

Paint.net is a nice little program, they put a lot of stuff in just 1.6MB
the Gimp is also a good one

 

[digital_exhaust]

Another GIMP user here...

I know there is a learning curve, but it's worth the time and effort. Really powerful for a free app, it really is. There are a ton of tutorials out there, and plug-ins galore.