Paint.NET, a free alternative to Adobe Photoshop

I've been flickr'ing too much lately, and started coming across a lot of pictures that are underexposed. We live in a digital world, and underexposed pictures can be saved a lot of times. Although the vast majority of people out there who owns a digital camera, only a hand full of them own Photoshop or have enough knowledge to use it to their advantage. I came across a so-called alternative recently called Paint.NET. It's a free image editing program and photo manipulation program that contains much of the core features you need for easy adjustments, and all those tools that are better than your silly MS Paint that belongs to the museum.

I was going to start writing some of my tutorials about fixing photos with common problems based on it, but after spending some time with it... I find it missing way too much features even the earlier versions of Adobe Photoshop offers. Honestly, I can't live without things like layer masks... transparency, different brushes and pressure... but then again, to be honestly with you, it's a pretty darn good program if you're looking for something FREE to replace your MS Paint. :-) Give it a shot if you don't have Photoshop or similar programs!