For general image management and editing, we use Adobe Photoshop Elements, which has a rich feature set, is reasonably priced and is not too complex to learn to use. This is the software that we use for our Level 1: Beginners and Improvers courses
For end to end lifecycle managing and manipulating RAW images we think Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is the best. This is what we use for our Level 2: Feed your Passion courses
You can choose these from the carousel below and also find links to some useful and inspirational books
Other software that we use includes:
Photomatix Pro from HDRsoft for HDR processing. You can buy this online, or download a trial version from http://www.hdrsoft.com/
Noiseware for noise reduction from Imagenomic. You can download a trial version or buy online at http://www.imagenomic.com/