Just srarted serious editing this year. Love Lightroom. Saved a lot of poorly exposed photos (good for amateurs) and when I do nail the shot from the camera, look out! Lightroom can make it look magazine quality! Very few lighting situations Lightroom can't handle, even bad stage-lighting. And if you must shoot in broadbdaylight? You can lighten the darks a skosh and soften the light areas for a little less contrast. CS5...will wait until I get a better grip on the software. Still a bit beyond me.
For all my other edits I use ipiccy.com / basically like the new picnik.
Sadly I don't know how to use photoshop and or gimp ._.
I edit with curves, exposure, brightness (and RAW) on Photoshop. I really need to learn a lot because my editing knowledge is almost nothing. :/
sometimes a series of techniques, saved as actions.