What programs are the best to have??

I have PS Elements and Lightroom 4 right now. Any other suggestions? I also have a pile of plug ins for the Elements. I got a Canon T1i recently and still trying to get everything else I can to support it.

elements is perfect to learn the basics on … thats how i did it … after a while you will want to upgrade to CS3 at the least … i also use alien skin bokeh and topaz adjust and when i feel brave i use photomatix

Ok, maybe I will stick with that for awhile. Thanks! I just got a 50mm 1.8 lens since it seems to be a good bang for the buck lens. That and my auto-focus is broke on my 18-55 too. (don’t ask).

yea i use that lens non stop for my nikon

With those two lenses you can hammer out some quality shots. Scott Chu www.schottchu.com only used an 18-55 for most of his work for quite a while. Which can prove the misconception about needing extravagant equipment to make quality photos.

I personally used to use Topaz Adjust and Photoshop CS3. I now use Photoshop CS5 and thats it.

Lightroom 4 doesn’t exist yet. Lightroom 3.4 maybe? I use almost exclusively lightroom 3 (current version is 3.4.1) and it’s a great piece of software novice to advanced user.