News flash... I don't own Photoshop and I've never used it. That shit is expensive! When I really started learning about editing I had Flickr and their trusty (albeit limited) editing tools. But that worked just fine for me and my style. A couple years after I joined Flickr they made some changes, got rid of their editing tools and went with a simpler interface that had a lot less tools. Thankfully, the company behind the initial Flickr editing started a new company called PicMonkey. A lot of their features are free and easy to use. You can start with a free trial and go from there, but it's still pretty cheap.
After using PicMonkey for a while I realized I was going to need to invest in better software if I kept pursuing this love. I broke down and purchased Corel's PaintShop Pro X4. I was mainly drawn to Corel simply because of the price. It's abut half the price of Photoshop and to me, totally worth it. The only drawbacks I have are when I'm reading a how-to article on editing the articles always show step-by-step directions in Photoshop... total bummer. However, I've been able to recreate a lot of the same instructions in PaintShop. It just took a little more time... and maybe a YouTube tutorial.
What editing software do you use? Are there any out there that are cheaper, better, faster? Do you think PaintShop sucks, and Photoshop is where it's at? Leave me a comment and let me know.