I beg to differ, slightly, with CaptainSpam's writeup. Paint Shop Pro is a paint package very much in the tradition of the DeluxePaint family. It was first released (I think) for Windows 3.1, and each version has added more (largely pointless) functionality. The best version was PSP4. It allows pixel-level work to be done easily, although lacks some of the toys of versions 5 and above. PSP's strengths are that it supports a wide variety of image formats (making it ideal for batch conversion of files), has a thumbnail gallery, and loads extremely quickly (well, version 4 does - its progeny are stupidly bloated). However, as a serious image manipulation program, it is almost wholly inadequate. Photoshop laughs in its face and spills its pint. Forking out more than about £30 for it would be a waste of money, but it's the best no-nonsense paint package for Windows.

First of all DeluxePaint was a great drawing program. I have a lot of good memories from my childhood creating very bloody cartoon movies on my Amiga 500 using deluxe paint III
Paint Shop Pro lacks a lot of the features and functionality that you find in Photoshop and Gimp but you you cant affoard Photoshop and for some obscure reason dont want to install Linux PaintShop might be a good alternative for the you.