This idea came to me after seeing many requests for different things in the forums.
How about having a "Links" page (linked at the top navigation) that holds categories of useful links to things that many people (mostly newbs) might not know about?
Something like so:
Image Manipulation Software:
Commercial Software:
Photoshop (CS2 Trial) - The flagship of image manipulation
Paintshop Pro - Corel's image manipulation software
Free/Open Source:
GIMP - GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. This is a powerful open source image manipulation application and a great alternative for those that can't afford commercial software
Gimpshop - GIMP modified to have a "Photoshop feel" to the interface.
Paint.Net - Paint.NET is free image editing and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. Not a bad choice.
Vector/Illustrating Software
Freehand MX (Trial version) - Formerly by Macromedia and now by Adobe
Illustrator - Adobe's premier vector drawing program
InkScape - Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
Animation Software
Flash - Vector-based 2D for everything from animation to web interfaces to video.
Blender - 3D rendering and animation
Alice - Free 3D animation software from Carnegie Mellon University particularly targeted to youth/students
Coffecup's Firestarter - A commercial alternative to Adobe Flash. Trial version available.
Mix FX - Another alternative to Flash that's geared mainly to website effects.
SWiSH - Another commercial Flash editor.
Source/Stock Images
Source Exchange - Premium and royalty-free images. BE SURE TO CHECK USAGE TERMS ON EACH IMAGE!
Google Image Search - Duh. But PLEASE GET PERMISSION TO USE THE PICS!
DeviantArt Stock Images - Again check the usage requirements!
Copyright Friendly Photos - A good resource for images that have been donated by photographers for the purpose of learning!
FotoSearch - Stock photography and footage.
Yoto Photo - A pretty good search of free images
Image*After - Site says it is "a large online free photo collection. You can download and use any image or texture from our site and use it in your own work, either personal or commercial."
MorgueFile - "The term "morgue file" is popular in the newspaper business to describe the file that holds past issues flats. Although the term has been used by illustrators, comic book artist, designers and teachers as well. The purpose of this site is to provide free image reference material for use in all creative pursuits. This is the world wide web's morguefile."
FreeLargePhotos.Com PSC member "Whimsea" wrote this site and asked for permission FOR ALL OF US ON PSC to use their photos for our chops..... THEY SAID "YES!". The only stipulation to usage is you must give credit for the site on the entry right under the image. (© Copyright 2007 [name of photographer], FreeLargePhotos.com)
FreeRangeStock is another site found by "Whimsea". Free registration, read the rules, they summarized free to do whatever. They'd like it you give them credit, but it's not a stipulation of use.
Stockvault.Net - Free registration required. "Browse and search our photo gallery of over 8.000 royalty free, high resolution stock photos, templates and logos to use in your personal and educational design projects."
Free Photos Bank - The TOS says "Any photos/pictures posted by the author “freephotosbank” are free to use as long as you are using them for a website, book, magazine, etc. You cannot download our photos to sell as is or modified from any source. To use our photos/pictures you must accredit us on the work that you used the photo/picture on/in for the use of them or we will consider it a copyright infringement.
Any photos/pictures posted by other authors remain their property and it is their decision to license the photo to you. We at FreePhotosBank.com do not retain the right to license other photographer’s/author’s material at this time. Please feel free to use our “contact” function within the photographer’s profile to contact them and ask permission."
CompFight.Com - "Raids" Flickr for images matching your tag search. You can restrict the search to CCL images only. You get back 300 thumbnails instead of the default on a Flickr search. Thanks to vokaris for this one!
Complete list of sites listed alphabetically by domain. Some of these sites haven't been reviewed yet to ensure the sites are still up. So if you find a dead link let me know via PM and I'll remove it from the list. Likewise if you find a link that's not in this list then I'll add it.
http://www.9x113.de/
http://aarinfreephoto.com/
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/zooimages/links.html
http://aboutpixel.de/
http://www.abstractinfluence.com/
http://adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/
http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/gallery/
http://amygdela.com/stock/
http://www.animalpicturesarchives.com/
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/
http://www.artfavor.com/types.php?type=12
http://www.bajstock.com/
http://www.bigfoto.com/
http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/stockart/
http://www.burningwell.org/gallery2/main.php
http://cepolina.com/freephoto/
http://compfight.com
http://www.creativity103.com/
http://davidniblack.com/imagebase/
http://www.designpacks.com/
http://www.dreamstime.com/freephotos
http://energy.star29.net/store/
http://www.essendemme.com/stock_photos/
http://www.everystockphoto.com
http://www.farmphoto.com/fpv2/
http://www.fotoimpact.ro/
http://www.fotosearch.com
http://www.fourbees.com/fourbees/phoelm.asp
http://freeeimages.com.uk
http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp
http://www.freeimages.co.uk/
http://freelargephotos.com
http://www.freemediagoo.com/
http://www.freephotobank.org/main.php
http://www.freephotosbank.com
http://www.freephotostation.com/
http://www.freephotosweb.com/
http://www.freepixels.com/
http://www.freerange.com
http://www.freerangestock.com
http://freestockphotos.com/
http://geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/photos.htm
http://gillesgonthier.com/Photos/insecta.html
http://www.graphicsarena.com/
http://www.imageafter.com
http://www.imagetemple.com/
http://www.insectimages.org/
http://lightmatter.net/gallery/
http://majesticimagery.com/
http://www.microshots.org/
http://www.morguefile.com
http://www.nwyhstockimages.com/
http://www.oneodddude.net/
http://openphoto.net/
http://www.photolibrary.fema.gov/photolibrary/index.jsp
http://www.photorack.net/
http://www.pics4learning.com
http://www.piotrpix.com/
http://www.pixalia.net/
http://www.pixelio.de/
http://www.pixelperfectdigital.com/
http://www.public-domain-photos.com/
http://www.qualitagious.com/
http://stockart.deviantart.com/
http://stockcache.com/gallery/
http://www.stockvault.net
http://www.studio25.ro/
http://www.sxc.hu/home
http://www.trulyfreestock.com/
http://www.twicepix.net/
http://www.unprofound.com/
http://www.vintagepixels.com/
http://www.yotophoto.com
http://www.zurb.com/zurbphotos/
Free Brushes/Actions/Styles
(should work for Photoshop, GIMP, Fireworks and any software that supports the Adobe plugin format)
Shapes! - Over 10,000 custom shapes for Photoshop.
Free Image Hosting
Imageshack - You may upload .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .bmp, .tif, .tiff, .swf, and .png image types. bmp, tif, and tiff images will be converted to .png automatically. File sizes up to 1.5 megabytes are allowed. Files larger are automatically resized. *New - Imageshack has started a gallery feature so you can easily retrieve your pics! Registration required for that feature
Photobucket - Registration required with free and "pro" accounts available. 1GB of storage and 25GB of monthly bandwidth allowed. Allows you to use albums to organize your photos.
OhShot - Free image hosting of JPG, GIF or PNG allowed. No registration. Allows shots up to 500 kilobytes.
TinyPic - Tinypic™ is a photo and video sharing service that allows you to easily upload, link and share your images and videos on MySpace®, eBay®, Orkut Scrapbooks, blogs and message boards. You don't need to open an account to use Tinypic™
http://imgur.com/ - suggested by bsholic.
What is Imgur? Imgur makes sharing images with the Internet easy. It can be used to share pictures with friends, as well as post images on message boards and blogs. You can manipulate the image a number of ways and automatically submit it to popular sites such as reddit or digg. You can also view popular user-submitted images in the gallery. Best of all, Imgur is completely free.
File Hosting/Sharing (for sharing your project files)
Box.Net - Registration required but you get 1 GB of storage. You can pay to get more storage.
4Shared.Com - 1GB of free space with a 50MB size limit on free accounts. Premium accounts available.
PSD Now - host up your .psd files so others can check your layers and blending modes! 15MB max.
BoxCloud - Application for sharing your files across the Internet. For Windows
and Mac!
Screen Recorders (good for recording "How'd you do that" videos)
CamStudio is a free, open source, screen recorder
Camtasia Studio is the commercial-grade cousin to CamStudio.
Wink - Distributed as freeware for business or personal use. Wink is a screen & audio recorder that outputs to Flash, Standalone EXE, PDF, PostScript, HTML or many standard image formats. Use Flash/html for the web, EXE for distributing to PC users and PDF for printable manuals.
UtraVNC - screen recorder is build with the old Rendersoft camstudio source.
Jing Project - </i>The concept of Jing is the always-ready program that instantly captures and shares images and video…from your computer to anywhere.</i> They also seem to provide some media hosting.
Anything else that could be added?
edit: added a couple categories and I just have to get the URLs.