I've been thinking about trying to use photoshop to enhance my photographs a little.
but 1.) i dont feel like paying a fortune to use it.
and 2.) i cant seem to download it and actually have it work correctly.

any thoughts?

I don't want to be a copyright preacher, but being a photographer you should understand intellectual properties.

To answer your question, have you looked at Photoshop Elements? It's a watered down/layman's version of Photoshop but has tons of features and tools.  There's also Jasc Paintshop Pro (PeeCee only) for about the same price.

So, you can be legal, ethical and get your work done at the same time.

Before I started using Photoshop, I used almost exclusively Ulead Photo Impact. I still use it for some applications, but it is a very good editing program for the money.. last version I bought was about $80

Gimp is free.  Not sure you you need a *nix distro of some kind or if there's a Windows client out there.  There are probably other open source photo tools that you could get your hands on for free or cheap though.

Adobe offers students a huge discount; check with your school's bookstore.  Or pick up Photoshop Elemements; that has a lot of the basics.  Or download The Gimp; it's free.

Photoshop is tops.

It is expensive but worth it, consider it an investment and as long as you put in the effort it will pay you back in the first year.