Preferably free, as I only want to do one thing with it. I have 2 photos. What I want to do is put them side by side and make one photo from them. Any suggestions on what I can use to do this?

IrfanView should do what you want. It's free and free of spyware, and can create panoramas. Google "irfanview download".

When you open the program, click on "Image" and then click on "Create Panorama Image". Choose between horizontal or vertical panorama, then "Add images". When you've selected the images to use, click "Create image" and you should have your combined photo.

is gimp still free?
there is a cut-down version of photoshop that runs live online, that's free to use

the GIMP is always free, and according to their website(http://www.gimp.org), they'll be free forever... unless you buy from someone who decided to start selling it, but you can still get it free. :D

I don't advise the GIMP for panoramas, and irfanview would probably work well for that, but I've never used it. If you can get access to photoshop, you can use photomerge, which is probably one of my favorite things in it.

Thank you for the suggestions. I ended up using IrfanView.
I accomplished my goal.
Here is the end result (at least so far). It is now my desktop photo-wanted to have both my grand-daughters on the screen. And I will explore IrfanView further.

ah, we mistook it for you wanting to make a panorama, which is taking pictures and piecing them together so they look like one continous picture.

I'm thinking irfanview might be worth looking into...

Very desktop-worthy granddaughters. Congrats!

You can also keep adding photos onto the new image, both horizontally and vertically, to create a larger montage if you want.

There's also a quick-and-easy slide show function (in the "File" menu). It's a barebones editor without the advanced effects of PhotoShop so it tends to be overlooked by serious users, but I use it a lot for the panorama and slide show functions.

And Vaerli's right, I don't think "panorama" is technically the proper term for what IrfanView does, but that's what its maker calls it.

Youn can get photoshop elements for about $40 if you wanted..

The best way to make a montage of images, using Irfanview, is to create one using the Create New (empty) image... option.
You just need to make sure that Only 1 instance of Irfanview is active is NOT checked, in the options menu (Options / Properties... / Msc.1)

Using Image / Create New (empty) image..., set the empty image to the size of your desktop.

Now, open one of the images you want to use, in another instance of Irfanview.
If you want to use the whole image in your montage, select Edit / Copy.
If you just want to use a part of the image, use the Selection Tool to select the part you want, then Edit / Copy.
(More information on how to use the Selection Tool, can be found in this tutorial, under Step 3.)

Once you have it copied, go to the blank image you created, select an area for the image using the Selection Tool, then Edit / Paste.
This will add the image you copied to your empty image.
Click outside of the selection area, to remove the Selection Tool.
Just keep repeating the process, until your montage is complete, then save the completed image.

Here's one I did of the grandkids, for the wife's desktop:

Good info, thanks for that. It looks like one advantage of this method is that the pictures don't have to be the same height or width (depending on whether you're using vertical or horizontal) as they do with the Panorama function.

Grandchildren seem to be a popular subject for montages.

Images can be any size you want, as your placing them on a blank canvas.
The Selection Box will determine the size of the Pasted images.
Wherever the Selection Box is placed, that's where the image will be pasted, even if it's over an image that's already been pasted.

When drawing the Selection Box, try to keep the length, and width, proportional to the image that your pasting, otherwise the pasted image will be distorted.
In the image below, I pasted the same image using 3 different proportions for the Selection box.
The image on the left was pasted into a square Selection Box to match the square image.
That's the way it should look.

The 2 on the right were pasted into oblong Selection Boxes.
Notice the distortion.

two min's in photoshop, my dawg hex,