What Image Editor should I get?!

I am sure many of us all need to use one, after all we have camera's and stack of photos old and new. But you don't want to spend loads of money, and frankly speaking why should you?... There are good free programs out there! But which one is suitable for your needs, you may ask?!

Gimp has long been consider the best out there for those who can't afford really expensive graphics packages such as Photoshop and CorelDRAW but with Vista dominating the market at the moment it seems that there are some glitches between these two. Apparently it hangs when it is querying Fonts, but there is no need to worry as the fonts will be cached in the next time you open your Gimp.

Here's a helpful link for those with this problem
http://www.daniels.net.nz/2006/09/21/windows-vista-and-the-gimp/?from=expdev


At the link below you can find a comparison of raster graphics editors sorted by availability, between Commercial software and Free or Open Source software. You will also find basic general information about the editors (creator/company, license/price etc.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_raster_graphics_editors


Each one of us here has used one or two (maybe more ) programs listed in the chart. Why not give your opinion on the programs you have each used. The pros & cons