I just rent the full Photoshop. Sine I have been using it since the 1980s, it is familiar. I hate some of the new way some things work. We work with gigantic images, and often exceeds the limits of saving a file as a tiff or JPG. The RAW import is vital as well, as we shoot in RAW, and tweak the exposure and color before import.
As far as a replacement, there is nothing that can do what we need except Photoshop. I have played with GIMP and even paint, and I just don't know how to do what I want. I have had files that are 20 GB sue do multiple layers, and huge pixel numbers.
