Hey Joel


With a budget of $1500, I would get the best. I think a Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2.0 combo would be best for you.


Photoshop will deal with advanced editing - Masking, compositing, Panoramas, HDR, etc., while Lightroom will help you organize all of the photos and make adjustments like colour temperature, exposure, contrast, saturation, to name a few.


My description of both pieces of software really just scratch the surface - There is a lot more to discover:


http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family/?promoid=BPDEK


I wish you best of luck in finding your software. []