Photo by me, image manipulations by the GIMP
One of the truely cool things you can do with computers these days is make wonderful images. The price of entry for high end image manipulation software need not hold back any aspiring digital artists. GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a freely distributed piece of open source software.I downloaded the GIMP 2.0 for MacOS X to see if it ran the same as GIMP 2.0 for Windows, and I was pleased to find everythign was just as I remember it.
Sometimes it can be a challenge to figure out where everything is if you are used to some other program. Most simple tasks like shrinking and cropping pictures are a breeze. If you poke around long enough you'll find everything you need and a few graphical toys I can't even begin to figure out.