Beta 3 is out for the Windows platform, functional through January. Time to give it another look.

I have Beta 3 for Windows. It's a pig. Unless someone can convince me I've done something wrong I won't be reinstalling it. I really wanted it to work as advertised

I've been using it and I think it's terrific -- just what I needed for correcting exposure, gamma and color errors. It works fine on m 3.1 GHz P4 with 1 gig of RAM.

Just received an email from Adobe -- Beta 4 for Windows is now available.

I use GIMP and I think its great!

and its a freeware.

Very early user reports indicate that it is much faster and feature-rich. I'll need to wait to get to my home machine to test it out.

The Mac version of Lightroom beta 4 feels much faster than beta 3. Also, Apple today announced Aperture 1.5.
From TUAW:

I use Photoshop but for many functions but irfanview is easier to use, quicker and supports most fucntions that you woudl need for simpel editing

I'm hoping Lightroom will end up being something to solve the problem of the middle ground. There are plenty of RAW converter/lightweight tools (irfanview, RSP, BreezeBrowser, C1, Bibble, etc.) and then the heavyweight of CS2. None of the converters can do localized editing, and I know I barely use 20% of CS2, even after a year of use. Taking ACR, with RSP's technology, and adding the 20% of CS2 applicable to photography, plus an catalog function, could be a real winner.

A truly free program, that is easy to use, and has about as much functionality as Photoshop is Photofiltre.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/photofiltre.html

click on the link above for users reviews and to download the .exe.

As far as photo management and sharing, and minor lighting and/or color adjustments, Google Picasa is the way to go.

Sorry, I don't mean to hi-jack this thread. But to enrich it with following:

Can any and all experienced users of digitl photo editing programs (free or paid) shed some light on "user friendliness" aspects of - arranging, eidting, archiving (burn DVD) and creating video out of stills and posting on web.
For me, I often use Photoshop Elelments 4.0 (together with Premiere Elelmenets 2.0), Picasa, GIMP, PictureProject (native Nikon), PhotoStory 3.

I found Picasa is easy to use, but has limited editing capability compared to Photoshop and Elements. I like the fact that Picasa imports your photos and organize them by original folders.

GIMP is less intuitive, but improving with new plug-ins. Look forward to the new rev that is due soon.

PhotoStory 3 is my favorite in terms of ease-of-use in creating video out of still photos. It has limted editing capability compared to Elelments.

I only use PictureProject in conjunction with my 2 nikon cameras. Mainly during early stage work-flow process. Don't use it for editing at all.

I recently began learning how to use Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements together from import to output. It takes a while to grasp all the features. I like this combo because now I can complete a project from beginning to end (like arranging photos, editing, creating video with text, music, narrative and specail effects). As far as video creation, I think PhotoStory is much easier to use.

Would you share your experience, please?