Other than the obvious major

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software (Ps, Lr), which programs are people using, and for what?

I do mainly portrait photography, if anyone has any more specific suggestions...

Alex, Portrait Professional

If you're looking for freeware alternatives, I use

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it sort of bridges the gap between MS Paint and Photoshop, a very nice editing suite.

I also like to use

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(that's GNU Image Manipulation Program) for other tasks.

Other decent packages include

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and

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Thanks for the links!

GIMP has always seemed scary to me, frankly - what was the learning curve like for you?

I've got hold of Paint.NET now, looks like it will be a real help.

Personally, I prefer Paint.NET over GIMP as it has an easier interface.

Having said that, the plugins for GIMP are a lot better than paint.NET's.