Do any of you know of a decent free or cheap photo editing software?
Summer is in full swing here, which means that we spend quite a bit of time at my parents pool. I usually swim a while and then sit and visit with whatever family members happen to be there at the time. While this is a great way to spend a summer afternoon, it’s not so great for my productivity. I have photoshop on my desktop, but am looking for a free or at least cheap photo editing software for my laptop so that I can get some work done while on the go.
If you know of any or have any experience with any free or relatively decent priced photo editing software, please leave me a comment…..as I will be at the pool. 
Depends on what you need, and how much time you want to spend learning to use new software.
Paint.net is free, is quite simple to learn but powerful and it has all the basic features needed for photo editing (and more features can be added with plug-ins) http://www.getpaint.net/
On the other side of the spectrum there’s Gimp http://www.gimp.org/ that’s still free, very complete software and therefore quite complex and takes more time to learn.
I’d stard with Paint.net, and if it doesn’t satisfy you then try Gimp (somewhere there’s a plugin for Gimp that makes its layout more similar to Photoshop, so that should make it a bit easier to learn)
Hey Thanks! Lots of useful info. I will check them both out.