Basic Imaging program recommendations ?

Alrighty.

I'm looking for a basic photo editing program (freeware) so that i can place text onto photos. The problem is that MS paint seems to leave the background colour onto the photo, eating up more of the space than i'd want. I'm looking for something that can run on winows 2000, but nowhere near as complex as gimp (as my father has only a basic grasp of computing skills). A nice example would be kodak imaging (for those who remember win98) ..but the problem is it wont run on 2000 for me.

Basically im' looking for something slightly more powerful than MS paint (but please be straightforward to use) but nothing as ...complex as gimp.


I've read the huge sticky thread (a bit) and i'm kinda lost..as googling led me to download many strange programs that look like they're either for children or require em to register (my father's computer does not have an internet connection, which i plan to install via a usb flash drive)

thanks in advance

 

The Gimp is free and works quite well.

 

Maybe Draw. It is part of open office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org_Draw

 

Piccasa? I don't know if it's too simple

 

Paint.NET is good.

 

Don't worry, you can make MS Paint work. All you have to do to get rid of the opaque background behind text is go to the Image menu at the top of the program and uncheck "Draw Opaque."

Here's an image of me doing just that: http://i15.tinypic.com/4ldhv9l.jpg

However, it's usually a good idea to leave Draw Opaque checkmarked for anything else when you're editing... it can mess up copy and pasting and a few other tools... alternatively, you can play around with it and figure out exactly what it does ;p

 

I second that. More powerful than MS Paint, but much less complex than the Gimp (which I personally love)

 

No illegal stuff here, Thank You.

 

Thank you very much for your advice guys

 

By far, try Paint.NET

Needs .NET framework 2.0, but it's a superb package. It's also relatively easy to use.