In the past I haven't really done any of the graphics design for the web sites I work on. That could be changing with my discovery of open source Paint.NET.
At first I thought Paint.NET was just MS Paint on steroids. I've discovered that it is far more advanced like Adobe Photoshop than MS Paint.
Tools:
Paint.NET has many of the same tools as many non-freeware applications including the Magic Wand, a curve tool, and gradient tool:
There is even an unlimited history window to track and undo or redo all of your changes to an image; just like in Photoshop:
And possibly best of all, you can manage an image's layers. If you don't know what layers are for images, it's a great time saver and organizer. You can make each component of an image as a layer. For example, if you have a photograph and wanted to add text to it, you could add the text in a new layer. If you needed to remove the text you can simply remove that layer.
Community:
Paint.NET is updated frequently partly as a result of its wide community base support. There is a very active user forum group that answer user questions, provides tutorials and examples, and distribute extensions.
Summary:
I am by no stretch of the imagination a graphics software expert. However, I do know that this open source software has the functionality found in many of the high-end graphics software suites. This has been perfect for me because the price is right and has great community support.