I tried gimp and I hated it.
When i do smoothing in Photoshop my first tool is to use the eraser. Set the hardness to 0% and the brush to something big and slowly work away at it.
But gimp could be different so I'm not exactly sure.
:S That must be bad, are you a student? They do some pretty good deals.Tell me about it, I can't afford PS. Which sucks because I took a class on the whole Adobe Suite.