My wife and I bought a Nikon D70 last Christmas and have taken thousands of pictures in less than a year but have not yet purchased any software. I did some testing of some from Microsoft and Macromedia with the idea that the cost of Photoshop will not be in my budget for a while and I was not satisfied with those. Anyway, we are more than the casual users that just like to spend alot of $ on toys. We also bought some umbrellas, backdrops, backdrop stand, etc. and have some hotshoe lights that are working fairly well for us for now.

We have been doing more and more "paid" photoshoots with friends and family since they really like the output and the ease compared to sears photo or another similar photographer. And all the while we are learning. I know this is how many of you got started. We have some visions of doing more "paid" work in the future.

Anyway that is a long ramble to get to the point. I just happen to have returned to school this year for 2 semesters and am graduating this month. That being said, I had a flash of lighting hit me and realized that Photoshop may be available in a educational version and it is. ~$270

So here are the questions:
1. Am I correct that if PS is in my reach financially, it is bar- none the best photo editing tool there is?
2. At this point my computer a laptop with a 1.5 Centrino processor and only 1024 x 768 monitor and I think 512mb RAM. Is this computer going to be able to handle PS?
3. When and if I get PS, are there going to be other tools (software) that I am going to need? I here things about some using other tools for "processing" the RAW files.
4. What type of process do you go through on your files in a step by step manor. Do you edit them all? Do you visually edit them all? Does PS or other program auto edit in batch manor things like exposure? If so is this recommended. I ask all of this, because we have not done much editing since we have so many pictured and it takes lots and lots of time using MS Office Picture Manager to view each one and make adjustments.
5. Is there any other software I should consider?
6. Do you know of any websites that answer all or part of my questions that would be helpful.


Sorry for the long post..

Thanks for your imput.