Several are named in there as viable alternatives to the costly and frankly massively over-specced Adobe Photoshop. It all comes down to what you want to achieve and how much you can (/ are willing to ) spend.
Have a read through that, and if you’ve any further questions, post them here !
Yes, it is. And many here will recommend either CS3 or Elements
However, I feel CS3 is more orientated to graphic design/art, and is a bit much for photos –
though there are things that can be done with it that aren’t possible with ‘simpler’ software –
Elements is more photography orientated.
I’d suggest that you look at Lightroom or Aperture [mac only] as both are primarily
designed for photographic processing.
PS Elements is pretty good to get started with. PS CS3 is a huge, expensive piece of software covering all kinds of neat graphic design techniques, Elements is pretty good for general digital photography processing. I have a MAC and have both CS3 and Aperture. I have never really took to Aperture.