Which program?

So, I want to pick up a program that will help me touch up my photos. I see a lot of talk about lightroom and Photoshop (elements?). Can anyone make any recomendations as to which one to buy? Will it offer me more than the Zoombrowser and DPP that came with my Canon? What I feel these programs lack is ability to manipulate highlights and shadows separately and maybe clean up some noise. It is not my desire to create and use a bunch of special effects. At this time I will continue to shoot JPG and tinker with RAW. (Thanks to everyone who attempted to help me with my RAW questions the other day!)

Later versions of DPP (3.9.2 currently IIRC) do offer a (limited) ability to adjust shadows and highlight specifically. Similar to what LR offers. (Mot identical)

LR3 offers local adjustments and is catalog based, so can be used as DAM software, both of which DPP lacks.

Photoshop (Elements) is a pixel editor, so can do whatever you want to whatever pixel you want.

Download a trial and see what you like.