Can I copyright the photos I edited?

Basically what everyone else said, legally you cannot copyright a photo you edited but didn't take. All of the copyrights belong to whoever took the photo. Now, the original photographer can give you a license/permission to use the images, sell the images, distribute the images, etc. But they still own the copyrights.

I would agree that the copyright belongs to the photographer. There was a discussion in another forum where the question came up about someone who took a photo of a unique situtation and had an artist make a painting of it and claimed that it was his work. There was considerable discussion about that being a copyright violation. If you want an answer to this question you need ot consult a Copyright Lawyer to find out for sure.

Nope you can't - actaully you can't even legally edit the pictures. You need to get the approval of the original artist to do anything.