I know you can download Paintshop Pro for a trial period of (I think) 60 days. I think some others (Rob?) might have recommended this software as well.
It's available at
http://www.jasc.com/products/paintshoppro
but I think it's quite a large download- might be a bit tricky if you're on dial-up.
It seems pretty user-friendly, but as digital is a bit out of my price range so far I haven't tied too much so I'm probably not the best judge! It's certainly quite an established product.
Cheers
Matt
The copy I have is pretty old. Considering the advancement of digital photo processing I figured there had to be something out there someone knew about which could handle the same basic stuff that PhotoShop did at a more reasonable price.