Anyone know of a good image editing program?

[Fletch]

I'm looking for something that would let be basically modify, change, customize various images. What I'm thinking about doing is something that I could apply to say a shirt or jacket design to have the image put onto. So let's say I want to take a picture of an image and make it say silhouette and then just take that specific image (no background or white border like if I copied it from MS Paint) and use that for the design. Anyone know of a program like that which isn't super technical? Also I'd prefer it to be moderately priced or even free would be fine. I don't need a $300 program for something I'm going to be tinkering around with. I'm not sure if that is like a photoshop program of if there is something out there that will actually do what I'm looking for, especially with something that is fairly user friendly with an technology challenged individual.

[stobes21]

GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/) is free and my understanding is that it's pretty good.

Photoshop Elements (http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopel/) runs at $80 or so and is essentially a stripped down simplified version of the big thing. It might suit your needs.

Picasa (http://picasa.google.com) is also free.

[Slash McCoy]

I'm still using Paintshop Pro 5.0 for editing pics and for drawing stuff. Yes, it is about 15 years old. But it is simple, with a small footprint, and it does everything I need it to do, generally. Sometimes I break down and use Adobe Photoshop CS2 for photo retouching... whitens teeth, gets rid of red eye, stuff like that. But PSP5 is my go-to program for must image editing. I don't like the current versions.

[probesport]

Best free one going to be GIMP as mentioned above. Else, next stop is Photoshop if you want to pay for something worth having.

[Slim1023]

PAINT.net is another free one. It's not quite as powerful as GIMP, but it's a lot simpler to use.

[Jake]

Check out the free & multi-platform Photofiltre. It's excellent!

[djh]

I believe that you can download a free Trial version of Photoshop Elements- depending on how long you need to use the software, that might get your job done. If it suits and you need it over a longer timespan, you can always but it afterwards.

[Edcculus]

Sounds like you need some sort of drawing program like Illustrator if you want to make logos, labels etc. There is an open source version called Inkscape, but I've never used it in depth.

[Shmur]

+1 for Paint.Net it handles everything I can throw at it.
If you have access to a Mac, check out Acorn. Free 30 day trial and only 30 bucks to purchase.

[oversaturn]

I generally use PhotoScape (http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php): a GREAT editing image software! Very easy to handle, and it is FREE!

For more complex things, I use GIMP (also free).

[The Pontificator]

Another free open source possibility is Seashore. Don't know what platforms supports it I only had it on my Mac.