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I recently stumbled on this very nice and informative videopodcast called "Meet the GIMP!".

As its title suggests, it's all about showing the potential of this free and open-source graphics software while focusing as well on some theoretical aspects of image manipulation (what do the blend modes like "Multiply", "Screen", etc. actually do) as on the practical side of using this software.

The presenter is Rolf Steinort who in "real life" is a teacher for biology and chemistry. His profession shows in the videopodcast, too, in a very positive way.
Although working without a script, his shows are structured, build upon one another and keep a moderate pace so everyone can follow. He doesn't reveal any super-secret magical tricks but explains the fundaments of good digital image post-processing, e. g. using layer masks, dodging/burning, etc.
So even if you are fairly familiar with image editing or even with the Gimp itself, "Meet the GIMP" is a relaxed and enjoyable format.

All in all Rolf Steinort is doing a really sympathetic and informative show there that deserves even more attention than it is getting already.

He tries to put out one episode each week and there are 32 episodes so far with an average running time of about half an hour, although sometimes it's 20 minutes, sometimes 50.

So if you feel like it, give it a try.

Noise in images? No good way to get rid of it?

Sometimes I see myself confronted with this problem and the denoising filters in the Gimp just won't do the trick or result in a smudged image.
So by pure chance I recently found GREYCstoration which is an

Open source algorithm for image denoising and interpolation, using state-of-the-art image processing techniques.

It comes for the three major plattforms Windows, *nixes, Mac OS as a command line or with a GUI or as a plug-in (for the Gimp).

I must say that the results are really convincing, although so far I have not really tinkered with many of the parameters - and I have only tried out the denoising part of the algorithm which - if we believe the website and the examples shown there - can also rebuild images called "Image Inpainting", i. e. remove non-image parts such as overlaid text or even reconstruct damaged/missing pixels.
GREYCstoration is also supposed to be a great tool for resizing, esp. enlarging, images with better results and less blur than other algorithms, but I am not sure about that or if it is generally a good idea to Blow Up pictures first of all.

Having said all that it is up to you to test it for yourself if you think it can be of any use to you.