Hi CK,
As the others say, PSP8 and PSP9 are great choices, I use 9 and used to use 8. IMHO relatively easy to use, and for skins/re-paints as good as Photoshop.
Also PSP10 and above have monitoring software built in, which you can get rid of but is a pain to do, which slows usage and takes up pc resources, and is only marginally better than 8 or 9.
There are a lot of plug-ins for PSP, so you can get a lot of effects.
Cheers Shessi