thecuddlyninja said:
I've used a program called paint.net for years. It's completely free and pretty good IMO.
I've been using paint.net for a long time also.
I'm not sure if it's licensed for commercial use though, so GIMP is probably the best (actually Photoshop started by ripping of a lot of ideas from GIMP, they just came up with a good interface).
If you haven't got it yet, get the Magix Humble Bundle that has Vegas 14 Pro Edit (NO Updates). It also comes with Xara Photo & Graphic Designer. Has photo editing and vector graphics. 1 year of updates so could even make it to the next major revision. It has CMYK separations for professional print prep.
Only downside is it doesn't have built in Pantone data, so you have to look those up to get RGB equivalents.
There are a couple other photo management programs in the bundle also.