Good pixel/bitmap editor?

[LuckMan212]

hi guys, I have searched high and low recently for a decent, lightweight bitmap editor.  Something like mspaint but with slightly more features.  Here's what I am looking for:

1) ability to open/save GIF, JPG, PNG, BMP, and ICO
2) ability to use custom color palettes
3) decent zoom support (able to zoom into image for fine detail editing) -- preferably using mouse wheel or kbd shortcut
4) axis-constraints (i.e. hold shift to lock to X or Y axis while moving or drawing)
5) basic image editing features: resize, crop, stretch, adjust hue/saturation, replace color, etc
6) 24-bit/32-bit color support
7) pleasant interface
8 ) reasonably lightweight and fast

that's about it. 
before everyone says "you just described Photoshop" please I already own Photoshop and it fails in several areas:

1) takes forever to launch-- sometimes I just need a simple tool for a simple job
2) tools are not really optimized for per-pixel bitmap editing, too much emphasis on anti-aliasing, smoothing, etc.  I often find that it takes too much effort to adjust all the tools between pixel pushing and photo editing.
3) does not read or write .ICO files
4) slow and bloated
5) expensive

I have not found anything that even comes close (well, mspaint is the closest I guess!) 
anyone got any tips?

[tinyvillager]

The Icon feature can be a hard feature to meet.

That being said,and these are all free btw,Photofiltre,http://www.photofiltre.com/ can export to icon and i believe can
read an icon file and it's light weight.Inscape works with Vector graphics and has presets for icons that makes it easy
or easier to work with those 16 by 16 icons used for favicons.Artweaver doesn't meet the icon requests just yet,but
it's light on the resources and worth keeping an eye on.Pain.Net  doesn't meet the icon request either,but it's a nice
replacement for MSPaint.

Free icon editors
IconLab
http://www.wildfiredesign.net/iconlab/index.htm

@icon sushi
http://www.towofu.net/soft/e-aicon.php


Paint.net
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/

Artweaver
http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version

Photofiltre
http://www.photofiltre.com/

Inkscape
http://www.inkscape.org/

[allen]

Sounds like Graphics Gale to me -- rather light weight, easy to use -- zoomed in pixel editing is its strength/primary emphasis.  To work with most of those file formats, though, you'd have to pay for it or copy/paste the graphics in/out.

[tinjaw]

Allen,

Thanks for the suggestion. I was looking for something that I was calling Paint++ or Advanced Paint and GraphicsGale seems to be a good fit.

[Edvard]

Hmmm...

CursorArts ImageForge:
http://www.cursorarts.com/ca_imffw.html

Ultimate Paint:
http://www.ultimatepaint.com/

I use the freeware version of Ultimate Paint a few times a week. Not a whole lot of bells and whistles, but a lot of "just works" features that you just WISH were in msPaint.
I tried ImageForge a long time ago and I didn't like it, though I can't remember exactly why...