If you are starting out with "serious" photo software I recommend buying Lightroom before PSE. Lightroom has solid editing capabilities, but much greater breadth. The Library module is a joy for managing your images and deciding WHICH images you want to concentrate on editing. The learning curve - even for the edit module - is much easier than Photoshop (but still check out the excellent introductory videos on the Adobe website). And when you are ready to step up to PSE or full PS, you can use it right from Lightroom (and it will be easier to step into if you've gotten comfortable editing in Lightroom first).