[Jason Green]

Hi Kayleigh, with no previous experience of Gimp, I could suggest you copy each photo you want in Windows Explorer or My Pictures, and use the COPY to edit. Could you copy those you want to edit into a new folder?

If you want to work within the My Pictures folder of the original image:
Right-click on your intended image > Select Copy > right-click on a white surrounding area > select Paste > it will now make a copy in the same folder, giving the new image the name of '... - Copy.jpg'.

Just use this and/or rename it. It would then be OK to crop and resize without affecting the original.

Good luck!

EDIT: The posts above come in before mine...