If you've known me for a while, you probably know that I believe Openoffice.Org competes extremely well with Microsoft Office.  (Well, in the word-processing, spreadsheet, graphics, and database.  Not quite as well in the viewgraph/presentation way.)

Frankly, I don't understand anyone buying the MS version, except possibly if they're dependent on VBA.

But Mrs. dbsmall was a fan of using MS Publisher to lay out photos and do some basic frame-based editing.
And everyone keeps pointing out that if I had Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, editing graphics (say, I don't know, updating Small.to's look) would be much easier.  So what am I to do, if I'm too cheap and just want to try stuff at least, before I commit?

I'm happy to say, I have some answers, and they're quite satisfying.

You want a scalable vector graphics (SVG) editor, like Illustrator?  I've tried out Inkscape  and find it to be eminently powerful and delightful.  I was disappointed that it lacked three features of DTP that I had gotten used to with Publisher (and FrameMaker before it):  The ability to flow text between two frames, the ability to wrap a text frame around an object, and the ability to have "templates".  I mean, don't get me wrong, it's gonna do everything I need for Small.to.  I just had a wish list is all.
Well, it turns out that my wishes may be fulfilled by Scribus.    Trying it out, right now.  Probabely either of these latter two will work for Mrs. dbsmall and me.
Which leaves Photoshop.  Maybe I don't want/need it, after all.  I found that the GIMP was too difficult to use.  Perhaps GIMPShop will be easier, or perhaps that whole class of software is just not needed in my home.