FREE Image Viewer and Manipulator. You can't beat it for the price and it does a great job of optimizing images for the internet. This is a good tool to start with. If and when you outgrow it, you can buy a more powerful program - but you'll probably still come back to it from time to time. (And Irfan keeps making it better and better, so watch out...) Quick and easy FREE download from their website.

Many, many people simply LOVE this program. We used PSP, off and on, for years, and it remains the best alternative to Photoshop - if you can't afford Photoshop. The best versions, in our opinion, are version 3 and version 4, because of their simplicity and ease of use. The current version is version 8; it's grown more powerful and feature-rich, which is great, but it takes more time to learn. It's a 28 MB download from their website! Visit your local computer/software store and buy it in person, saving the download time (and maybe some money...) $99.00 from their website.

This is the industry standard - for those who can afford it.
This is what we use day in and day out. Comes bundled with a program called "ImageReady" which helps automate web graphic effects, like "rollovers" and "imagemaps" (to name a few). Photoshop takes some time to learn, so plan on it, though the built-in Help and Tutorials are excellent. We recommend a class or two if you really want to get the most out of Photoshop - but it will be time well spent. $609.00 from their website. We recommend you buy it on CD, either locally or directly from Adobe, and save the 237 MB download!

We use this daily!. Great image viewer, organizer and file manipulator. It's recently gotten more powerful - and more expensive. $50 from their website.