Check out the books from O'Reilly. There are a couple of books on HTML and CSS plus Pocket Guides, as they call them, plus Web Design in a Nutshell. Each of their books has a lot of examples for tackling specific things.
As far as software goes, the fewer products you use, the better. You should learn how to code it yourself first, even if you do less ambitious projects. Then, when your web design application doesn't work as planned, you can jump into the code and fix it without waiting.
As far as Photoshop Elements goes, it's a good tool at a good price for editing photos. It's quite well-equipped for web design.