b&h photo has a lighting kit for about $200. two 500w lights and 250w light and two umbrelas. then you need a back drop and a stand which can cost some money. has both the backdrop and a stand you can make.

Well, you definitely need a tripod, if you don’t have one of those. You might also want to buy some filters for your lenses to get different effects and help with the harsh outdoor light.

The best photo editing software is Photoshop. You can do pretty much anything with it… one of my professors said, “I don’t think even the people who MADE Photoshop know everything it can do!” It’s an amazing program, and there are plenty of books available on how to use it.

Outdoor photos of what? Landscapes? Than your 28-135 with its 1.5x crop factor on that 40D isn’t going to cut it (that lens is a minimum 42mm at 35mm equivilent). You really need a 16 or 17 mm lens.

Are you taking macro shots of bugs or flowers? Again, that lens is not good enough. You need a macro lens, possibly some bellows tubes. a grood tripod is essential. Also, you would need better lighting equipment than is standard on the 40D.

You said outdoor portraits. Portraits usually means people. Again, a prime 85mm or with the crop factor, 75mm plus a good lighting kit is essential.

as for software, mac or pc? If PC, go with the newest version of photshop cs. If Mac, I think they have better programs, but I don’t know about them, sorry.

the best editing software is Adobe Photoshop CS3 is the de facto industry standard. However, this is a $620 professional-grade software package.your also going to need a camera stand and a decent camera that zooms well and you can take many pictures in a row with out wait.
Good luck!

You have the camera and a decent portrait zoom.

Other things you would need(at a minumum from my experience):

A hotshoe flash for fill.
A softbox/Demb Diffuser/Lightsphere for the hotshoe flash to diffuse/soften the light.
Reflectors(white/silver/gold)
Tripod
Diffusing material – sometimes in direct sun, the light can be too bright and you’ll want to cut it with soemthing like a pure white bedsheet or similar. It gives you a nice softbox light effect and not the direct, hard light.

Other things that would be nice, but not necessarily required:
An assistant
battery powered hotlights or flashes with umbrellas for portable light
a stand for holding the reflectors

The BEST editing software out there is Photoshop CS3. However, unless you are going to need extensive retouching or graphical design capabilities, I woul recommend looking into Adobe Lightroom of Photoshop Elements 6.0. Both will have 99% of what a photographer needs to do good post production work on their images.
Lightroom is $200 and Elements is $79(i believe).

I still use Photoshop CS2, only because I have been using Photoshop since version 7 and I know the tool and it’s cheap to upgrade. If I were just starting out now, I would probably get Lightroom.