The Gimp and other editors

The Gimp 2.6 has been released and it is really polished. They even changed the general layout of windows. Check it out!
Another free editor for windows is Paint.NET It does not have all the scripting and filter function of The Gimp, but definitely can do a lot, and worth checking out.

Don't forget about IrfanView. Although it is primarily a viewer it does have some cool editing features. It also has very robust meta data features.

Oh, and then there is XNVIEW, free also, and great for batch resizing.

I personally have found my investment in Adobe's products very worthy, but these programs are truly useful and can really help if money is tight.

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Photomatix 3.1

YES!!!! The very fine people at HDRSOFT [ http://hdrsoft.com] have upgraded PhotomatixPro to version 3.1, and what is so excellent is that they have included an Adobe Lightroom Plugin. This greatly improves workflow is is very appreciated. Thank you!

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Third busted shutter button

Well three times a charm I guess for my 30D. Yesterday I sent it back to Canon get the shutter button repaired. I want a replacement, but they don't do that with SLR's apparently. I am definitely going to sell the body after this. I really need a body that is reliable for longer that 5 months at a time. While I am going to keep all my L lenses, I am still very tempted by a Pentax K10D with some pancake lenses, or an Olympus e420 with a 25mm pancake. So light weight, perfect for street photos. To replace the 30D I am thinking a 5D would be perfect as I would get the best out of the lenses I have.