While Photoshop is only half as useful as Office, it's twice as fun. In a time when literally everyone has a digital camera, the need to crop, lighten and touch up photos is great. There are a number of simple products out there that will take care of a few of the basic tasks. The beautiful thing about Photoshop is it does everything. The problem is that it also costs everything ($650!).

The good news is there exists a free open source alternative, The Gimp. The Gimp does most everything that Photoshop can do. It can be a little frustrating at times, but so can Photoshop. If you are already familiar with Photoshop, there is a version of The Gimp whose layout emulates Photoshop. Also, there are a number of tutorial online covering both basic and specific tasks.

If you're looking for something a little simpler Google's Picasa is free, will do most things and is way easier than Photoshop or The Gimp. Corel's Paint Shop Pro is another very good for advanced functions and only costs $80. It's also worth noting that Windows Vista has some very cool photo editing capabilities coming, but that's another topic...