I work with Adobe Photoshop CS2 for editing.
Several people work with GIMP, and I'm not saying that Photoshop is better than it, but for me, GIMP seemed extremely confusing! But if you study after tutorials, I guess the result will come out ok

When I get some time, I want to check out Macromedia Fireworks. I worked with it on a friend's computer and it seems wonderful, especially for webdesign (which is a passion of mine), but also for just editing and animating pics.
When it comes to animating, I use Cofee Cup Gif Animator, which can save files both as .gif and as flash.
Sites... I don't really use... They usually save the images in flash and not all forums support flash

i don't think the imvu forum does, but ours does

. insert flash option is the first button on the 2nd row.
Try Tinypic, you upload the normal picture, then you get the option to edit it. I just go crazy for the flames option they have

I'll check my bookmarks and tell you some more sites soon
