What type of adobe photoshop should an ametuer photographer

[Tom]

I have been working with a very old photoshop version called elements 5. the Ps elements series have an easier interface to use than the more powerful cs3 and cs4 programs do. it's a pretty good place to start in my opinion.

at first it may seem very limited, but I found you can do many things with it. layers, masking, brushes, combining pictures, retouching and editing, it's not too bad.

but then again you may want a stronger version than that. up to you =]