GIMP (www.gimp.org)
Don't have 700 bucks to pay for Adobe Photoshop? GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. There is a bit of a learning curve with this software, but there are online forums and tutorials to help you learn to use it. All the graphics on this site were made using the GIMP.

Hoversnap (www.hoverdesk.net)
HoverSnap is a a free handy snapshot tool with jpg, png, bmp and gif support. HoverSnap can take snapshots of the full screen, active window or a selected area.

Paint.net (www.getpaint.net)
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.

Pixie (www.nattyware.com)
Pixie is an easy-to-use, fast and tiny utility designed especially to fit the needs of Webmasters and Designers. Its a colour picker that includes a mouse tracker. Run it, simply point to a colour and it will tell you the hex, RGB, HTML, CMYK and HSV values of that colour.