I use Elements at home on a Mac for 3D postwork and other 2D artwork, and at work on a PC mainly for web site graphics.

It is really not the hugely cut-back version of Photoshop CS that many people assume. It has many of the features of CS (including full layer support) and also supports most Photoshop plugins (one of the obvious exceptions being Actions that call up CS-specific effects). It's a powerful image editing and painting tool, and as a hobbyist just starting out on postwork techniques I think it should suit you very well. Well worth the price.

So is The Gimp, of course... that cannot be denied!

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)