What's the easiest image-editing software?

Paint comes free with Windows, but it doesn't support combining images from different files.

I'm looking for a free, EASY TO USE (emphasis on easy to use - I don't want to have to spend a month learning this) image manipulation software that will let me combine images, plus do all the regular stuff like cropping resizing, playing with aspect ratios, etc. It should be able to read and write the standard file formats (jpg, gif, png, pdf, doc, etc.).

Can anybody help with this? I'm not an artist, so I don't normally use this kind of software, but I guess it's time to Expand My Mind.

 

Hello Minstrel, I think I love you!

Having got that embarrassing truth off my chest, I would recommend Sketchbook, it has layers and many tools, and is simple to use. Here is a piece of art I created:-

EDIT: Oh photo manipulation, dunno about that, sorry.

 

Gimp's free and well liked. I believe it rivals photoshop in terms of its features. Can't say whether it's easy to use or not. Maybe someone could chip in on that.

 

I'd second the Gimp recommendation. Free and very easy to use for anyone with limited image editing knowledge. (such as myself, lol)

 

Gimp is fairly easy, but if you're willing to learn Lightroom, you won't be disappointed.

 

I disagree that GIMP is easy to use but it is very powerful and there are many YouTube tutorials (which are easy to follow) and add-ons (filters for special effects like sepia toning). If you're looking to combine images - that is use masks and layers and such to say place a subject in a different background, then GIMP is perhaps your best and cheapest choice.

PhotoScape is free and must be easy to use - my wife rarely bothers me with "how do you do this?" questions when she's using it. It doesn't permit layers but it will do all the other basics you mentioned.

If you're intending to work on RAW files, then RawTherapee is excellent but if you're in Linux, Darktable is a seriously powerful application. By reputation it is a competitor to Lightroom, but I've only used DT.

 

The best is what you prefer as to ease of use versus cost in order to achieve the editing that you need to do.

One size fits nobody.
And your personal preferences as well as amount you are willing to spend are a big factor that will make other people choose differently.

 

Paint.net is pretty badass. https://www.getpaint.net/

Very similar to Paint, but with layers and things, similar to all the fancier stuff.