First, if you're a student or teacher, remember you might qualify for great discounted prices. You might want to own a copy of a high-end program (make sure it's got a future) so you can get upgrades. Your choice depends if you're buying software just for getting stuff done, or if you also want to build career skills. Good Photoshop skills are basic to lots of jobs, and just all around useful. I worked as a multimedia programmer and was miles ahead of folks who had to wait around for a graphic artist to fix every little thing, when I could just fire up Photoshop and do it myself in a few minutes. I got my full version cheap bundled with a scanner and Photoshop Lite came with various things. I've a friend who figured out a way behind the consumer interface of PhotoDeluxe to use the scaled-down version of Photoshop it's based on. That might be enough for what you need. You might find old copies of either. My local library has a shelf of Photoshop books. For PaintShopPro check the forum here.