I posted on this to photo.net but would like to see what folks here have to say. Is there an alternative to Adobe Photoshop? It seems to me that this thing was made for graphic artists and not photographers. One still has to pay (and handsomely) for the extra tools one will never use. I also find it really tedious to learn and somewhat arcane. I want to scan, do some very minor editing (colour correction, cropping, maybe some dodging and burning). I print with the computer mainly just to evaluate whether or not I want to send it out for a larger, serious print. Also, I only scan colour. I do b&w in the darkroom.

I am also thinking of getting a Mac Mini and using it exclusively as a colour darkroom (i.e., not connecting at all to the net). Any experiences, suggestions, or advice on all of this?