A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it me takes about the same time or longer to edit images as it does to type.  Snagit by TechSmith helps me a great deal. 

Snagit is not a full photo editor by any means, but it does help provide some useful embellishments to images or screen shots without requiring a lot of work.

I love Snagit for three reasons.

1. To capture  scrolling windows (for web designs)
2. To add annotation, drawing, and markup on the image
3. The quick drop shadow effect

Key features I use:

1. Edges- Drop shadow, fade, torn, wave, saw, shark tooth, beveled
2. Watermark, resize, flip
3. Image types: jpg, png, gif

Drop Shadow

Fade

Watermark

Shear