CS5 or Elements 10
 

I am trying to start a side photography business and I'm looking at photo programs to purchase besides just editing with iphoto and i know that CS5 has a lot that i would never use and elements is cheaper, but i'm afraid that elements would not do what i would like to do. I'm looking at doing sequence shots, being able to mess around with the colors stuff like that. any help would be greatly appreciated.

Get photoshop and do a few online tutorials, you'll be glad you did.

sounds like you are using a mac? Pixelmator is pretty cheap and it will do layers / sequence shots / etc.