Image Editing Software Recommendations

Hi, I hope it's okay to ask for recommendations in this forum (this isn't a specific tech support question.)

I'm looking for something similar to Photoshop that will enable me to creatively merge images. There a few sites that will blur images together, but it's not quite what I need.

Are there any free programs on Majorgeeks or websites you can suggest? I've uploaded an example of the kind of "combined image" I'm talking about. Thanks!

 

Gimp, https://github.com/Diolinux/PhotoGIMP, GimpShop (still available, not updated), Paint.net

 

I use Irfanview. It does the basic jobs like crop, resize image, darken/lighten image, etc. Prolly the best free app, but it's no Photoshop. It does have a lot of very useful things for renaming, getting info from, and others and when Windows finally makes it impossible to use Photoshop (I'm using version 7 on my Win 10 computer), then Irfanview becomes my go-to app for images.

 

There is a free version of Adobe Express
https://helpx.adobe.com/express/using/express-overview.html
Note: I don't use any Adobe products.

Then you can merge images online using it.
https://www.adobe.com/express/feature/image/combine