What is the best/cheapest photo editing software?

I suppose it depends on what you’re trying to do with your photos. If you are looking for free Photoshop alternatives, Paint.NET is fine for the basics. Many people like gimp as well. And there is always the simple photo cropping and adjustments available in Picasa, as well as online with your Google+ photos.

I second gimp. It’s what I use.

Photoshop Elements probably does everything you want and more and it’s $100 or less (I see the older Version 11 for $65 online and that would work fine).

You can download the latest Elements from Adobe and try it free for 30 days.

I would use gimp but I already know Photoshop, so there’s no learning curve.

I use the free Paint.NET on my work laptop for simple edits.

Photoshop. If you pirate it. Pirate it.
I tried Gimp. It sucks. The interface is garbage. You need countless plugins to even get close to PS’ functionality. And effects and filters take aeons to compute.
I tried Paint.net. It sucks. It just lacks functionality.

^ C’mon @ragingloli. Gimp and Paint.NET might be perfect for what OP needs. They don’t “suck”. As for stealing software – really? If he “needs” Photoshop, he can purchase it.

It is not stealing. It is copying.

Stealing, copying, whateverthef*cking – It’s 2014 and we needn’t pretend that this hasn’t been already worked out. I know you know this. All I’m suggesting is that we don’t advocate illegal and unethical behavior because we happen to like what some software developers did with one piece of software better than the rest and have decided that we need to have it without paying for it.

Obviously, this is a bit of a derail. @filmfann knows what the options are now.

Another vote for GIMP.

@jaytkay You never heard of GIMPshop?

GIMP again. I recommend it to my student who can’t afford PS.

Also, you can rent photoshop for 10$ a month with adobe’s creative cloud.
I can only strongly advise against gimp.

Gimp is the best you can get for free but it’s really not that great. I would advise spending a little money and getting Corel’s Paintshop Pro. It does everything that Photoshop does, for about 1/6th of the price.

Gimp is free and there is a learning curve but for basic photo editing it does the job. Nothing wrong with it.

Another vote for GIMP, it’s quite capable for almost all of the things you’d use on photos in Photoshop. The user interface isn’t that bad, and if you’re familiar with photoshop/photoediting you’ll find what you need with not so much trouble.
I use GIMP regularly on the linux box. On the windows box I confess I use Adobe Lightroom which has a Very Good user interface.