MI noticed uri uses Photoshop. Is this a beter way to go versus MS Photo Editor?
It all depends on what you do, photoshop is a more powerful tool then the MS photo Editor. but if all you need to do is resize and save as JPEG don't bother with buying anything. and go with the free stuff.
Again as steven said, Photoshop doesn't come cheap. you can also get the Free GIMP, which will allow you to do everything you can do with PS. but in my opinion it's user interface is horrific...
Besides, I only use PS when I want to do somthing with is less then trivial (in this STS-100 shot I made a mask of the backgound and ran a "lens blur" filter on the background)