What is a good photo editing program?

[Calyxes]

I went to download.com and found alot of free editing software. What is a good one? I have heard of adobe 7.0 and it is on that web site but is their any other good ones?

[defianthart]

you can dl a 30 day trial of photoshop cs(newest version) on the adobe website, just about everyone uses photoshop

[knapplc]

I have Photoshop 5.5, which has been good enough for a while, but now that Mac has come out with the Mac Mini (which I'm getting), I don't think it'll even run on Panther because it's so old. I'm in love with Photoshop and I'm really going to miss it, but there's NO FREAKIN WAY I'm spending $650 for Photoshop CS.

Does anyone recommend anything that's even close to Photoshop? What else do you guys use to make your graphics?

Can you make graphics files with Photoshop Elements like sigs, icons and avatars?