good photo editing software recommendation

It depends how much you want to actually edit your photos.

For basic editing (cropping, resizing, removing red-eye etc) I'd suggest ACDSee.
If you're wanting to do more (merging images, adding text, removing content from images, blurring edges etc), then something like Paintshop Pro or Photoshop will do the trick.

I would recommend PhotoShop CS3 as my first option, however it is expensive. There are free options though that I do use myself:

GIMP
Serif PhotoPlus
Paint.NET
Pixia
VCW VicMan's Photo Editor
PhotoFiltre
Ultimate Paint
ImageForge
Picasa

All listed are free and are great programs to use!

Arcsoft PhotoStudio is one of the best photo editing s/w...it has simple layout & menus...it's best suited for naive users...unlike Adobe PhotoShop which is really tedious job to get ur photo in action...u can go for Arcsoft PhotoStudio, it has many features just like PhotoShop except brushes...[;)]

WEll I've ben using Photoshop for the past two years now. Now with CS4 version available, we can actually do absolutely any type editing to our photos. But as CS4 version requires a very high end PC I'm using CS2 which is to a great extent similar.
If you're thinking that Photoshop is only for professionals, then let me tell you I'm not well versed with Phothsop at all. There are lot of ebooks available and forums available wherein you can know the procedures of creating an effect or doing basic editing in photoshop.
I learned all that I know from various ebooks available on the internet.
Good Luck.

i think "Adobe Photoshop" is the best photo editing software i have edited many photos with that software.
It is easy to learn and simple to operate it even runs on a computer with less configuration.

in my view no one can be better than adobe photoshop and that is the reason why photoshop maintain its first position since 1990 when Adobe launched first version of photoshop.