For a powerful companion to Picasa2, try The Gimp (Gnu Image Manipulation Program, www.gimp.org) 2.2. the open-source alternative to industry standard Adobe Photoshop line. This isn’t exactly a tool for beginners – it originally was developed for Unix and Linux, and there also are full-featured versions for Windows and MacOSX. The Gimp has all the retouching tools you’d ever want, generally modeled after Photoshop’s. But you won’t find one-button automation of color correction, lighting and so on. Nor does it incorporate a cataloging function.
