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Originally Posted by littlebeesmom
can anyone explain to me what the difference between the photoshop, photoshop elements, photoshop CS4, photoshop lightroom etc are?
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"Photoshop" by itself would almost always mean CS4 or one of its predecessors. Full Photoshop.
Photoshop Elements is a low-cost editing package aimed at the average snapshooter. Originally a stripped-down version of Photoshop, it now has a number of features that full Photoshop doesn't have. (Some might call those the "for Dummies" features, either in an affectionate or pejorative way.)
Photoshop CS4 is the current version of full Photoshop. It's a graphic design tool that is generally accepted as providing the most power of any currently available editing package. However, much of that power is aimed toward graphic design rather than photographic "dark room" work.
Lightroom is Adobe's software for the serious photographer. It was designed as a photography tool, not a graphic design tool. It is particularly good at dealing with large shoots (you might be surprised to hear that some pros shoot 1000 or more photos in a single day).
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As someone new to photography, which one would be better?
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That depends on what you want/need to do. Me, I virtually never post-process my photos so I don't use any of them, and have an old copy of Elements 3 that serves if I need to do any editing. Other people treat their photos as artwork and couldn't live without full Photoshop. Still others shoot and process so many photos that they can't imagine life without Lightroom.
All of those products are available with 30-day free trials. Download them and see what you think. I recommend that you not download them all at once, though, because I doubt that you can learn your way around all of them in 30 days.