I have listed some of the free photo editing softwares, which are totally free and can be downloaded.  Although initially it would be tough to get used to new interfaces of these softwares until you get used to. From what i have seen seashore is easy to use and i have been using it a lot lately. Gimp for mac is also good, but i felt difficulty working with it as i am so used to photoshop interface.

Seashore

http://seashore.sourceforge.net

Free open source image editor for Mac OSX.

Inkscape

http://inkscape.org

Free open source vector graphics editor for Mac OSX, similar to corel draw or illustrator.

Paint Brush

http://paintbrush.sourceforge.net

A free paint program for Mac OS X just like MS Paint in Windows or MacPaint. It is a simple and handy tool for editing.

Gimp

http://www.gimp.org

Gimp is a FREE GNU image manipulation program available for windows, mac and linux. It is often the best free alternative for most commercial versions of popular image editing and photo softwares like photoshop or illustrator.

Xee

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/19978/xee

Lightweight image viewer and browser, just similar to preview tool for Mac. It is a free software.

PixGen

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/13363/pixen

Very powerful innovative graphics editor to Mac with advanced features. It is free software for mac users.

Chocoflop

http://www.chocoflop.com

Free image editor for Macs.  It is a free software and since the project has been discontinued, the software works well only on Leopard systems. It may not work or crash in snow leopard or lion.

If you are searching for a photoshop alternative and willing to spend some money (low cost paid), i definitely recommend http://www.pixelmator.com. It fast and really good and powerful image editor for Mac OSX. It is the best and low cost alternative to photoshop for mac users.

Enjoy!

I have compiled and listed here some of the best css navigation menus which i liked a lot and have been using it for many years. Please note that both free and commercial ones (most  small pricing) are listed here…

Glossy Horizontal Menu

License: Free

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/style/csslibrary/item/glossy_horizontal_menu/

Cool Horizontal Menu

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

Free CSS Navigation Menus

License: Free

http://www.exploding-boy.com/2005/12/15/free-css-navigation-designs/

Premium Menu

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

Dynamic Drive CSS Horizontal/Vertical Navigation Menus

License: Free

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/style/csslibrary/category/C1/P14/

Modern Menus

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

Colorful Menus

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

13 Styles CSS Menus

License: Commercial

http://13styles.com/css-menus/

Corporate Web Menus

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net/

CSS Menu Maker

License: Free

http://cssmenumaker.com/

CSS Menu maker is a free online tool to generate your CSS navigation menus on the fly.

CSS3 Menu

License: Free for only personal use

CSS3 Menu is a software, which can generate navigation menus of various styles with a click of a button.

http://css3menu.com

21 Professional Horizontal Navigation Bars

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

Super Leather Navigation Menus

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net/

Navigation Menu Bundle

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

Navigation Bars and Borders

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

Bundle of Navigation Bars & Web Elements

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

Web 2.0 Navigation Bar

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

Slick Navigation Bars

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

4Web Menus

License: Commercial

http://www.graphicriver.net

Clean Web Navigation

License: Commercial

http://graphicriver.net/

Premium Corporate Navigation Bar

License: Commercial

http://graphicriver.net/

Favicons is a must if you are running a professional website and it gives a iconic identity to your website from your browser. You can create favicon either by offline softwares or  online tools. Infact the easiest way to create favicons is by using online tools plus, only it produces a sharp transparent favicon to use in your website, plus you need not worry about experiment image sizes.  I have listed some of the free websites i have seen to create favicon, plus some free softwares.

Dynamic Drive FavIcon Generator

http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/

DeGraeve Favicon Generator

http://www.degraeve.com/favicon/

Favicon Creator Tool

http://www.favicon.cc/

Favicon Generator

http://favicon-generator.org/

Animated Favicon

http://www.animatedfavicon.com/

Favigen – Favicon Generator

http://favigen.com/

Free Softwares to Create Favicon

http://www.gimp.org/

http://www.irfanview.com

Photoshop Plugins for Favicon

To create favicon in photoshop, you will need to download this ICO photoshop plugin. It is free

http://www.telegraphics.com.au/sw/

Further, if you want to design animated favicon in photoshop, here is an excellent tutorial.

Gorgeous and visually stunning photoshop design tutorials for graphic artists and web developers. The tutorials listed below are from the best designers and truly you will gain lot of  inspiration from this to learn photoshop. I managed to compile  these tutorials are the best i have seen and its from every design aspect. Enjoy and have fun with photoshop!

(i) Realistic Outer Space in Photoshop

http://www.fudgegraphics.com/2008/10/create-a-realistic-outer-space-scene-in-photoshop/

(ii) 3d Outdoor Scene in Photoshop

http://designinstruct.com/digital-art/photo-manipulation/surreal-3d-outdoor-room-scene-photoshop/

(iii) Denim Texture in Photoshop

http://www.psdtop.com/blog/designing/realistic-denim-texture/

(iv) End of World photo manipulation

http://psd.tu-torial.com/photoshop-tutorials/end-of-the-world-photo-manipulation/

(v) Amazing Spiderman

http://www.adobetutorialz.com/articles/3061/1/The-amazing-spiderman

(vi) Smoke Art Tutorial

http://www.101prints.com/tutorials/abstract-smoke-art-tutorial/

(vii) Speed Effect

http://psd.tutsplus.com/photo-effects-tutorials/super-fast-speed-lighting-effect/

(viii) Flaming skull in Photoshop

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/how-to-create-a-hellacious-flaming-skull-in-photoshop/

(ix) Reflective Liquid Type

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/liquid-type/liquid-type.htm

(x) License Plate

http://pshero.com/photoshop-tutorials/graphic-design/vanity-license-plate

(xi) Light motion Trails

http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments/creating_light_motion_trails_glowing_spark/

(xii) Manipulate Smoke

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/photo-effects-tutorials/manipulate-smoke-to-create-hyper-real-images/

(xiii) Bulletshot Effect

http://www.pxleyes.com/tutorial/photoshop/1402/Create-A-Slow-Motion-Bullet-Shot-Effect.html

(xiv) Grass Effect in Photoshop

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/text-effects-tutorials/create-a-spectacular-grass-text-effect-in-photoshop/

(xv) Create Lightning

http://en.terragen.info/tutorials-postwork/lightning.html

(xvi) Create Bamboo in Photoshop

http://www.tutorial9.net/tutorials/photoshop-tutorials/how-to-create-bamboo-in-adobe-photoshop/

(xvii) Create Beautiful Website from Scratch

http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/design-a-beautiful-website-from-scratch/

(xviii) Rainy Effect in Photoshop

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/rain/

(xix) Painting Grass

http://www.jeshannon.com/Grass.htm

(xx) Adding Sunlight through Trees

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/sunlight-trees/

(xxi) Grass Texture in Photoshop

http://www.myinkblog.com/2008/06/11/create-an-awesome-grass-texture-in-photoshop/

(xxii) Facial Skin Texture

http://www.photoshopstar.com/effects/adding-texture-to-the-skin/

(xxiii) Realistic Green Apple

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/drawing/create-apple-photoshop/

(xxiv) Text on Fire

http://psd.tutsplus.com/text-effects-tutorials/dramatic-text-on-fire-effect-in-photoshop/

(xxv) Realistic Clouds

http://www.tutorialwiz.com/realistic_clouds

(xxvi) Briefcase Icons in Photoshop

http://line25.com/tutorials/how-to-create-a-detailed-briefcase-icon-in-photoshop

(xxvii) Still Candle in Photoshop

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/illustration/create-a-still-life-candle-in-photoshop/

(xxviii) Fire Dragon

http://www.eyesontutorials.com/articles/1622/1/Making-of-Fire-Dragon/Page1.html

(xxix) War movie Poster

http://www.tutzor.com/tutorials/designing-war-movie-poster

(xxx) Grungy Paper Texture from Scratch

http://www.bittbox.com/photoshop/photoshop-how-to-make-an-awesome-grungy-paper-texture-from-scratch

(xxxi) House on Fire

http://www.photoshoplab.com/light-your-house-on-fire.html

(xxxii) Surreal Photo Manipulation

http://richworks.in/2010/04/out-of-bounds-surreal-photo-manipulation-in-photoshop/

(xxxiii) Neon Text Effect

http://abduzeedo.com/shining-neon-text-effect-photoshop

(xxxiv) Smoke Effects

http://abduzeedo.com/smoke-type-photoshop-10-steps

(xxxv) Smooth Glass Effect

http://luxa.org/tutorial_smooth_glass_type.php

(xxxvi) Space Explosion

http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/drawing/fiery-photoshop-space-explosion-tutorial/

The software is a budget friendly software and costwise it is very good and if you are a beginner just starting to put steps in 3d modeling, my advice is you should never spend money buying expensive softwares at least for the start.

If you havnt touched cheetah3d, this tutorial will take you to the very first steps for a beginner. I will not be going very deep into cheetah 3d and i am going to keep it pretty simple.

Getting Started

Before you start with cheetah 3d, you will first need to know the shortcuts just to pan and rotate the 3d view camera. Go to cheetah 3d > preferences, then depending on touchpad or mouse, assign the keys. You can drag and rotate using mouse wheel and ALT + click drag for macbook. This is very important without which you will find modeling boring without getting a proper view on all sides of the 3d environment.

Understanding the Basics

Before we go any further, i want everybody to familiarize with the 3d dimensional axis (X,Y,Z).  Most modeling software use  the same concept of mapping colors to xyz.

Red,Green,Blue (RGB) ==> X,Y,Z

So the any green line you see in cheetah always means that it is Y axis and Blue means its always Z axis. So goes for Red.

Lets go a bit further and learn some basics…

Transform, Scale & Rotate

Now we look into transform, scale and rotate in cheetah 3d.  In 3d the fundamental building block or basic shape is a cube and with cube you can model anything, and to do that it is very important to grasp the basic transforms such as transforming, scaling and rotating of a 3d object.

If you notice the above image, see how the top face is selected and the cube has arrows, small square boxes in 3 colors and some 3 rings surrounding it. Each has its own purpose and see below..

Arrow = transform
Box = scale
Rings = rotate

You just have to click and drag on any of the objects to transform, or scale or rotate any of the above.

Further you will see this in the menu bar you will see the various edit modes.

Notice carefully that in the first cube, you will see just points, then edges, then faces and then solid cube. These are edit modes

(1) Point Select
(2) Edge Select
(3) Face Select
(4) Object Mode
(5) Pivot mode

To edit a object or model one, you have to use any one of the modes and in most cases you will use (1) (2) and (3) quite often.

Playing around with Cube

Now we know something about cheetah 3d and we are going to just play around with a cube. Its quite a fun.  Go ahead and add a cube. You will find that if you pull the arrows and the cube will just move here  and there you wont be able to stretch or scale or elongate it. In order to properly transform a cube, you have to first make it editable. Go to

Dont forget that before you edit a object, it has to be on editable mode. Go to Objects > Make Editable and soon you will find the edges clearly visible OR you can also double click the cube on the object browser to make it editable.

Dont forget that all the transforms and the modes of face select, edge select and point select will ONLY work if the object is made editable.

Once you make the cube editable, you will clearly see the edges and go ahead,

1. Select a side face in y-axis or x-axis
2. Click on face select mode and pivot mode

drag red the arrow sideways or pull the green or red square block and immediately you will see the cube change its shape.

Notice how i deformed the cube buy just playing around in both x and y axis.

Smoothening Models

Finally, one last thing you will know on smoothen the models which is known as catmull-clarke subdivision. Just right click anywhere on the object and with just a click you can smoothen the 3d models using this. Notice in the below screenshot, the pillar like object is smoothened with just a click using catmull-clarke subdivision.

I hope you have enjoyed learning cheetah 3d as much i did. Dont forget to go through the manual Cheetah 3d > Help > Manual which comes preinstalled in your cheetah application plus there are plenty of video tutorials in the cheetah3d forum