You can't really beat Adobe, PhotoShop and Premier.. However they work best on MAC and on powerful MACs .. It would be silly to pay nearly 500chf on license cost and install it on an old windows laptop.
Same applies to free alternatives, you need decent RAM, fast storage and damn good GPU.

If you have the hardware.. Try GIMP for photos, it can do everything that photoshop can do but may lack in the intuitive interface. DaVinci Resolve is only second to Adobe premier in professional studios and has a limited free version, maybe worth a look.

But hardware, especially GPU is first.. Depends how serious you are i guess..