Processing advice

[Wollemi]

Another vote here for Lightroom, it can do 99.9% of what most people will ever want for processing RAW files (its not bad for improving jpegs either).

you'll be amazed at how much highlight and shadow detail can be easily recovered. Graduated filter tool is brilliant also.

Picasa is a very good photo organiser but its processing of RAW files is rubbish.

You can still buy the standalone latest version, but maybe the creative cloud is the way to go.