Good free software for creating textures?

I'm trying to create and edit textures in minecraft.

The most recommended free program seems to be GIMP. But I'm not gonna lie, the experience with it is terrible if you are trying to draw anything. There's no color palette or simple drawing tools. There's no shape drawing. The most you can do is move pixels around, brighten or darken things, or add text.

What are some free programs for actually creating NEW content rather than adjusting existing content?

Ese 15.09.2015

You must have a different version of GIMP than the one I have, since there's a color map and related things under Windows (so it is separate bar from drawing) and many other choices for original picking. Under Tools, Selection Tools, there are round (Ellipse) and rectangular simple shapes drawing.
You might look up the tutorials on YouTube. What you want to apparently is make fancy stuff with a plain editor and then magically move it out to minecraft.

Mike1942f 15.09.2015