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I’ll recommend IrfanView, too. It’s really not all that much of an editor but more of a quick viewer with really basic editing. It’s invaluable for previewing, slideshows, thumbnails and full-screeen viewing without being too heavyweight and getting in your way. You can do some basic editing with it, but only very basic things. I like using it to look at photos and then set the preferences so that I can open a real editor with a hot key.

For a free medium-weight editor that looks nice, has a nice layout and is generally usable and intuitive I’d look at paint.net. If your needs aren’t too intensive it can probably handle many easy to intermediate editing tasks.

Of course Picassa is nice if you’re looking for mostly “one touch editing” and cataloging. If you want to do anything very complicated it probably won’t fit your needs, either. As far as I’m concerned Picassa is more of a cataloging program than an editor.

I always found the Gimp problematic since the layout and interface are wonky and unintuitive. It has a lot of filter plugins you can download. I found the 3rd party filters (if you need to install extra filters) to be pretty variable in quality with some good and some were pretty terrible. I hear there is a package called GimpShop you can get that rearranges the interface on the Gimp to resemble Photoshop so that it doesn’t look like the interface was put together by a mentally challenged orangutan.

After messing around with the quirks of the free stuff, I’ve usually eventually concluded it was useful to pay a little bit of money and get one of the less-expensive commercial editors since they’re often designed well, have more tools and options, present a more streamlined and consistent interface (to themselves and other programs) and have much better help and training built in. You can get either Photoshop Elements or Paint Shop Pro Photo for under $100. Photoshop Elements is probably OK for most people, but Paint Shop Pro Photo gives you more in-depth features (including scripting, more filters, etc) for about the same price.

From what I understand, freezing causes things to go mushy since during the freezing process water expands and ends up breaking the cell walls of many fruits and vegetables. Flash-freezing helps things stay crisper (can’t remember the reasons, maybe water expands more uniformly or not as much). Most articles I’ve seen say that things that have been frozen and turn floppy or watery when thawed are probably still safe to eat, but are just unappetizing.

It seems like some things freeze better than others. Maybe lower moisture content helps or if the texture is already soft then it doesn’t change much when thawed so it doesn’t matter.

Party tip: Don’t put celery sticks in the freezer because the refrigerator is full while preparing the vegetable tray. Though they do become much more flexible after being frozen.