I didn't look to see if this program was mentioned, but thought it may be worthwhile to some.
I was looking for a free program to edit some logos, banners etc and found this:
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/
Quite impressed. Allowed me to work with layers etc etc. For those like me who can't justify the purchase of commercial software, I think it's worth the look :)
I've been told that Paint.NET installs something called "Ink" which is a humungous resource hog, though.
There's also GIMPshop.
-[Unknown]
I use The Gimp for Windows