Photoshop is the professional choice and every photographer should learn it. It is very hard to master. You will not be able to get the most out of it without reading a few books. Scott Kelby has photoshop down. Etter than most photographers. He wrote a book. Called "The photoshop cs book for digital photographers". It is not written with all the technical bs that we photographers dont care about like many ps books. I highly recommed it for everyone that shoots digital. For about $40 bucks, its a steal. Just biy the book..trust me. As far as the program, drop a ton of cash if you want, bit it is my belief that adobe puts it out there so unprotected in hopes we amatures pirate it. They do this to create a base line of users. The only people that pay for the software are organizations and licenced business. This is not stealing, they set it like this for a reason. Simply hack the program for a fully functional version, buy the book, and learn it.