GIMP alternatives?

[Balshazaar]

I'm looking for a freeware program that is something like Photoshop.  The GIMP crashes everytime I try to change an image, so that won't do.  Are there others?

[Knightshade Dragon]

Are we talking editing or just changing an image from one format to another?  I have been using Irfanview for a long time and I think its fantastic, but I also have a student edition of Photoshop for serious dirty work.

[whiteboyskim]

Another vote for IRFan View here. Great for basic editing (resizing and such) but PhotoShop is your main thing for serious photo editing.

[Balshazaar]

Well, I need to do both.  GIMP crashes with some sort of warning that I don't have Tahoma 8 pt font (which I do have) whenever I try to select something with the selection box and move it to a different part of the image.  

Seeing how I'm newly returned to student status, I guess I should look into academic pricing.  How much did the academic photoshop set you back?

There's also the reasonably-priced JASC program, but I have no experience with it.

IrfanView looks cool as a viewer.  I'm gonna grab that now.  Thanks for the tip.

By the way, while poking around the dark corners of the internet the other day, I found this list of freeware graphics stuff.  It's worth a look.

[stiffler]

I use the JASC program, Paint Shop Pro 8, and I like it quite a bit.  To me it just doesn't feel nearly as bloated as Photoshop.  Now this might mean it is lacking some of the features of PS (undoubtedly), but these are features that I honestly have no use for in the first place.  The main benefit of PSP is that you can use Photoshop plugins.  So if you have your old Kai's Power Tools packs or something you can still use them.  Loads much faster and does everything I want at a fraction of the price.  Sounds good to me.  If you can't aquire the student edition of PS (or maybe PS LE) then I would certainly suggest you check it out.

Oh, and for image viewing, I would certainly reccomend InfranView.  I use a combination of ACDSee 6 and ACDSee Classic on my machine.  Classic because it is fast (but no frills) and ACDSee for things like resizing, converting, and making albums and such.  Good programs, but not free like InfranView.

[Knightshade Dragon]

JASC is a good piece of software, I can absolutely agree with that.  The problem with Photoshop is that it is an adobe product.  You open up the program and 900 libraries load before you make a single click.  :/