Im learning more and more that to have a great photo you need to first take one obviously, then to make it even better edit it. I want to know what you guys like for programs to edit photos. Easy to use and high quality! What do you guys recommend??

Make sure you get it right in the camera first. Then use the software to make them pop. I use photoshop 6, lightroom 3, and paint shop pro X3.

which one in your opinion do you think is the best?

If you are entry level, I would use Photoshop Elements. If you start processing many photos, and are into the RAW workflow, I would start to look at Lightroom or Aperture.
You cannot so everything you can in Lightroom and Aperture that you can in PSE, but the workflow is more intuitive, and better for batch processing.

I used PSE for many years, and went to LR last year. I still use Photoshop for some, but not all images.

I also used PSE for a few years, but recently switched to Lightroom 4 and find my workflow moving a lot faster and adding keywords file renaming are a ton better....I'm shooting HS football this year.

If you do a few photos then Elements....if you do a lot then Lightroom.
For me the combination of the two is just right.

I was an Elements guy until I purchased Lightroom 4. Just get LR4.

If you enjoy having a ton of sliders and tools to make really fine adjustments, get Lightroom. I've tried it a few different times, and I can never get used to it. I'm spoiled by the simplicity and effectiveness of Canon Digital Photo Professional which came with your camera for free. I'll use Photoshop if I need to perform major surgery. But for typical RAW editing and conversion, I think DPP is powerful and easy to use and gets great results.

That is, I assume you're shooting RAW, not jpeg.

Whatever you do, try other software before joining the LR/photoshop/elements cult.

DxO
Raw therapee
Capture One
Capture NX2/ NX (If you shoot nikon)
There are many other great ones, do some research and decide for yourself.

I've been contributing for a small town weekly newspaper for about 10 years now . . . I'm "small time" compared to a lot of "grinners" on this forum. Therefore I went with a "less expensive" finishing program. But work works best for me is to shoot in jpeg and then edit with Photoshop Elements. Once I got the "hang" of Elements I found it easy to work with . . . but then again if I ever tried the other programs I would probably say the same about them.

I am a novice and use cs5 , mainly bridge to make slight corrections and crop. I used trial LR 3 before buying CS5 with the thought of growing into it .I have explored in it some , possibilities seem endless. But i cannot fix a crappy photo with it .

I shoot raw. I'll just look around and play around with some!

It really depends on your needs...For quick touch-up work, PSE or DPP work fine. Lightroom has great editing power, and it lets you organise your photos really well--keywords and catalogs, etc... If you have a lot of photos to edit, LR is great. If you want to spend a lot of time fussing over a few shots, PS is better. Just depends on your requirements...

To me PSE and LR are different tools with some overlap. For instance, I had a photo of dress I wanted to replace the background with - PSE can do, not LR. To process lots of photos - find a tool to rate and remove, then use LR in RAW mode. This works for me.
Phil

First thing to remember is that you are asking a very subjective question. This means there will be no "right" answer and there will be no consensus here. I, for example, shoot RAW and use Aperture 3 for my adjustments and conversions. I've tried DPP and even ran 100 random images from a few years back through DPP and through Aperture recently and to my eye the Aperture images were hands down better. Not everyone will draw this same conclusion though.

I will tell you though that programs like Aperture and Lightroom have advantages beyond the easy ability to tweak images to make them better. Importing, exporting, file management, keywording, organizing, etc. etc. etc. And for those reasons, unless you are ultra critical about exactly how your images turn out, I really believe Aperture or Lightroom is the best choice for most people. Really good user interfaces, really good conversions and editing, and lots of additional features that you are going to find useful as well.