For image and picture editing, we recommend the award-winning free image editor Paint.Net. (Download - See a screenshot)

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

A few introductory tutorials

How to resize an image for the web

How to crop an image

Some useful effects


The basics - video tutorials

part 1 - About layers and brushes

Part 2 - About the color system

Part 3 - Opening, closing and exporting files



Finally, a wide array of tutorials from the Paint.Net community.