RSMarco, much of the software available these days is geared for both pro and amateur use - LR and Aperture (the former what I use these days) being very accessible to those who only want to do minor edits in quick, easy steps. They also include a lot of image archiving power to help store and categorise images.
Photoshop is still the boss, but it's much more for people who know their processing procedures; Elements is a scaled-down PS as far as I'm aware and suited to people who want something simpler.
If you fancy giving LR a go, have a look at
thelightroomlab - this is a really good internet resource with loads of handy video tutorials about general use. It'll help you get more from a trial version and at the least, help you make up your mind as to whether you want to invest in the full programme.
Personally, i think LR is great because I can import, catalogue and categorise my images, then process everything one-by-one using the one-shot processing sliders (as opposed to going through drop-down menus like in Photoshop) before I output. Of course, the other benefit I find from LR is the non-destructive editing, so regardless of whether I'm working in raw or JPEG, I'm just changing settings that are applied by the software, as opposed to having to save copies. You can also sync settings so they apply to a batch of images, which is a nice feature. Ultimately, you can't mess anything up in LR (or any other non-destructive software); you can't ruin an image for eternity because it's only settings applied, rather than actually changing the image. You can be as experimental as you like but always press the revert button and start back at square one without having lost anything valuable.
In terms of how I process, it's very much determined by what I want to achieve but because LR uses a series of on-screen panels to display all the adjustment sliders I just make adjustments to how I see fit, be it sharpening, WB adjustments or vignettes or whatever other options are available. You have curves in there too and more advanced functions to do with colour channel management - it's a very powerful piece of kit that's not to difficult to understand immediately.
Also, don't be too worried about shooting formats just yet. By all means shoot in raw, but a good JPEG will be better than a poorly exposed raw file. Raw is great for extensive, real intricate tweaking to get the ultimate from a shot, but don't discount JPEG - a high quality JPEG can look amazing when processed well and exposed correctly in the first place.
