Hey Fuzz,
I've used Irfanview for most of my 'color level' work because it is so darn idiot-proof. I've recently acquired Photoshop Elements and have been having some success (albeit time comsuming) with the panorama and a few other features. I've been keeping up with audio/video software since everything was a big, fat MPEG1, but was always scared off from the graphics stuff because Adobe was always too complicated for my ADD brain.
Anyway, I noticed that you used something called 'auto-levels' to 'fix' the color of that photo. The 'auto' part makes my eyebrow raise

. I've been able to achieve similar results with irfanview, but had to spend a lot of time monkeying with the bars. Did you just click a button and "vwalla"?
I wonder if my dumbed down version has this feature.....
Ted
*attachment*
I did this in a couple seconds using the color bars on irfanview. Not bad, but isn't as crisp at the photoshop photo. Also, not every photo is as simple to manipulate as this one. Some take many tries.