Adobe Photoshop Elements?

I'm really interested in purchasing Photoshop to really bring out my photos. There are so many different types of programs, and i'm not interested in the ones that are $600-900 because I see that those offer tons of stuff for 3-D type things, video stuff, etc. I'm just trying to concentrate on my photos right now. I want to be able to do dramatic effects with the skin, eyes, etc. and erase problem spots on faces.. that sort of thing. Hopefully someone catches my drift. Basically, I want to take an ordinary photo and make it look like it should be in a magazine. Is Photoshop Elements my answer? If not, what is? Surely I don't have to purchase the super expensive Photoshop to be able to just focus on the photos. Thanks in advance, anything is appreciated!

Adobe Photoshop Elements?virus

You have several options. Although Photoshop is the top end, and professional photographers use Photoshop, you can probably do most of what you want to do in Photoshop Elements. Version 6 is available for Mac or PC. There are some things built into full Photoshop that Photoshop Elements doesn't have, but it DOES support Layers which is probably one of the most important things in any photo editing software. And there are tutorials and books available for Elements as well as full Photoshop; some tutorials will tell you how to get the effect in Photoshop and the slightly different method for doing it in Elements.