I'm happy to support Wideboy's original suggestion of Serif's Photoplus 6.0. Serif are a fantastic firm. They make the vast majority of the older editions of their software available completely free. (I can't imagine Bill Gates doing that!). What's more, it's exceptionally good.
The link now seems to be working normally:
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
Incidentally, photographs taken by a decent photographer (who knows about such things as depth of field and soft-focus filters) shouldn't need any manipulation anyway.
Chris