The only editing program I use and promote is all free.

In Darktable you can edit photos like a professional, and you don't have to pay anything. It also works on all major operating systems.

Also...

Be careful when using the term "raw" when talking about photography, because that term already has an established meaning, as it means the RAW format that cameras produce, a sort of digital negative of the photograph that carries all the information the camera sensor sees when shooting the photo.

These "negatives" will always have to be edited and much of that information discarded, before they can be published. So if you say "raw" when talking about photography, all photographers will automatically assume you mean RAW the picture format instead of anything else.