I use gimp. It's free. But I usually have best luck with morning/midmorning light.

 

BS - you never get up that early !

I used to be a fan of paintshop pro back in the day
when I used to use pc's

 

Whatever, man. I'm in my office sleeping by 730 every morning. lol...

 

I like adobe bridge, much easier to get into the photos raw files and the controls are a lot more straight forward, You don't need to use a finishing software but it helps with saving some poorly taken photos and make good ones great. I use bridge for photo ingesting/finishing and photoshop for more artistic and stylized pieces that would benefit from a drawing tablet. When I was in high school I worked for a wedding photographer and he always said that for an ok camera lighting is key and for a nice camera its all in the settings. So if you just have your phone or something like that then I recommend focusing on angles and lighting, but if you have access to something that will let you adjust the aperture, ISO, F/stop and focus then put that camera in the other modes like aperature dependent or F/stop dependent. play with the same settings and take the same photo over and over again.

When using a finishing software spend some time messing with the pictures, and check out black and white photos, they often will produce awesome and dramatic results. I have some photos of my last deployment that I can show you where I just sat back and played with the camera or software to save the pictures. But in the end its all about your connection with the camera and knowing what it can do with what environment.