What Do You Use?

What sofware do you guys use to make images backgrounds and so on for you website i don't really know any so im looking for some suggestions and why there good because i don't really know much about them and have any accept paint which is next to useless laugh out loud because im going into website making with no decent designing software so which is the best?

I have looked on the web i don't know any free programs if there are any can you post here please, i think i should invest into getting photoshop is it worth it though? i don't know but i think Adobe are trustworthy well i think i may just have to buy it and be done with it well what are your reviews on it?

For simple things I usually use IrfanView and Paint.NET but just for simple editing, whenever I need to do something more I'm using GIMP, it's free and has a lot of features Photoshop has which is not free. ;]

GIMP for Windows: http://www.gimp.org/windows/
Paint.NET for Windows: http://www.getpaint.net/download.html
IrfanView for Windows: http://www.irfanview.com/

Also GIMP is available with similar interface like Photoshop, it's called GimpShop

you can get it here: http://www.gimpshop.com/download.shtml

Moreover you can try to use GIMP with another different interface, it's called GimPhoto

you can get it here: http://www.gimphoto.com/

Most of other better graphics software are commercial or with limited functionality while using it for free.