Photo Editing/Enhancement Software

[Titoist]

What is a good photo editing and/or enhancement software that a casual photographer can or should use?

I was thinking of Lightroom 4, but there are also free alternatives like Picasa, but I am unsure if I would be wasting my time with Picasa. I want it to be able to read/edit RAW images.

[moloko]

Light room is good if you shoot in RAW.

I would recommend ACDSee for what you want as a casual shooter. Plus it has a great database and tagging system.

Picasa is great for just looking at photos but for editing jpegs I would go into ACDSEE. If you shoot raw...then LR all the way

[Pink Floyd Veteran]

Lightroom is a very good overall and do everything app. It cost a bit more but you can't go wrong. Personally, I'm on Macs and using Aperture from Apple. These are pretty similar but Aperture only runs on Macs.

[DJD]

Take a look at Aftershot pro, its available for Mac, Windows and Linux!