Another option I just remembered.
http://www.serif.com
Previously, they had the marketing strategy to give away their older version; for example, they'd give away version 6 while they sold version 8. They've changed the setup, but there still is a free Starter version.
In the past, PhotoSerif worked and looked like an (older) version of Paint Shop Pro. Many people who found Photoshop too expensive and GIMP too user-unfriendly but still wanted a free program used Serif PhotoPlus.
Maybe it's still worth checking out.
If you have something like €69 lying around, you might want to look into Corel Paint Shop Pro X6 too:
http://www.corel.com/corel/product/i...id=prod5100069
If it's anything like it was in the past, they have a gamabazillion filters and scripts built-in. It'll change a picture of your dog to look like your neighbor's cat if you need to.