There's also PhotoPlus, also free, with no restrictions. It's a bit like Photoshop, too. I'll get the link in a second.
no photoplus free is very limited, there is no bucket fill, its layer manager is a pain and it doesnt do lighting...
gimp does that out of the box, without any cash.
look how about I give out a tut right now for instralling the gimp and get it over with just in case photoshop and photoplus doesnt work out.
firstly go to
gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html and go to the "download" section
first thing to download and install is the GTK runtime enviroment (GTK+ 2 version 2.6.9)
it is located here:
prdownloads.sourceforge.net/gimp-win/gtk%2B-2.6.9-setup.zip?downloadthere are many mirrors for this so chose the one that is closest to you if you are on a low speed connection, but dont be afraid to try out overseas installers as all of them are english by default.
make sure you save the zip file to a good location (perhaps your desktop)
and then go back to
gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.htmland download the gimp the same way (the current version is 2.2.9)
now hoping you have a decent zip program you can extract the files out of the zip by right clicking the zip file (zip files look like little folders with a zipper on them) and chose "extract to here" and thus the content is extracted directly to where you can see it.
I am sure you know how to right click and select things, otherwise you are in real big trouble ^.^
now just in case you dont have a decent zip program I will direct you all to 7-zip, as the default windows zip wizard fails after a while:
www.7-zip.org/like the gimp 7z is 100% free, contails no trial limitations or restrictions
it runs right out of an exacutable so it should not be hard to install
anyway the first thing you should unzip and install is GTK
(on my computer its listed as gtk+-2.6.9-setup.zip, the same is true with your computer)
after its extracted double click on the gtk+-2.6.9-setup executable.
now if you use something like winzip, or the normal default zip program, they normally can extract files right out of the zip but in some there is a possibility that your zip program will extract the file to a new folder with the same name as the zip, this should not be an issue anyhow as you can always open the folder and minimise it to the taskbar (and I am sure you know how to minimise windows)
anyhow once you double click on the gtk+-2.6.9-setup executable a window will pop up and you should click on the "next" button, then click on "next" again, then click on "next" once more, now dont mess with the installation packages as they are all fine and click on "next".
now this time press the "install" button and it will put all you need in its place.
a final page will pop up and it has several things on it, and you have the option of changing the language.
I dont really suggest you click on the little box that has the words "choose the language for GTK+ programs now" right next to it.
you can change the language funtion, but I dont suggest you do it if you are not good with computers.
but I will give you a tutorial on it anyway just in case...
if you dont want to do it simply ignore the next paragraph and just press finish.
in the case of if you want to change the laguage of GTK after you click the box with the words "choose the language for GTK+ programs now" right next to it and press "finish"
another window will pop up and you can change the language settings, the default is english (GB) [Great Britain] but its just as good as english (US) that is the default language of this program.
now the title of this thing might read "uninstall" in the taskbar, but dont worry about that, its a minor bug and wont uninstall GTK.
now I highly suggest you leave the language alone (never know if you might accidentally make it Portuguese or something), but if you think you can do it I suggest you switch from english (GB) to the default, otherwise dont worry about it, english (GB) works great for me
now press the OK button and you are all done
after GTK is done now its time to unzip the gimp zip file
(listed as gimp-2.2.9-i586-setup.zip)
like the GTK zip file, right click on the gimp-2.2.9-i586-setup.zip file and chose "extract to here"
then double click the 2.2.9-i586-setup executable, once again i wil mention that the file might extract to a new folder, so take care.
once you doble click the 2.2.9-i586-setup executable a window will pop up and the installation is practically the same....
press the "next" button four times and then you have the option of making the gimp your default image editor.
you can set it to open and edit any image type you want but I suggest you click the "select all" button
then go back down and press "next"
again next, unless you dont want to create a start menu folder.... but i suggest you skip that part.
now you have the option of creating a desktop icon and a qucklaunch icon, if you know what quicklaunch is and use it then you can click the "create quicklaunch" box, otherwise just press "next".
now click "install" and it will put everything where it needs to be.
after that just press finish and another window will pop up
this is the gimp user installation
first press "continue", then "continue" again, and continue once more.
now you have the option of chosing the space that the gimp will use on your computer, you really dont have to worry about this unless you have a limited amount of space on your computer.
I keep my cache of the gimp at its default of 128MB, but if you want to make it smaller you can.
if you have to use a small amount of space you should click inside the box that says "tile cache size" next to it, it has little arrows next to it that make the chache bigger or smaller, I suggest a cache size of at least 53 MB.
dont worry about the swap folder thing, if you have to make the gimps cache smaller then just do so and press "continue"
and all is finished...
Now if you want more help like if you cant get 7-zip to work or anything like that feel free to ask me as I am very tech saavy