First off, thank you all for the recs on a tablet. The Wacom has been working out quite well!

And as for the main issues, of which I actually have several-- The backstory: my job responsibilities have expanded rather explosively. It means that I, someone who only had limited hobby experience in graphics and art in general, am now doing a LOT of graphic design. Some of this involves doing a lot of black and white or grayscale shaded graphics for equipment. I basically draw these out by hand using photo references. More recently, I've been working on color photos, doing small edits and the like for our website, social media pages, and articles we write. I've found that paint.net works well for most of this. I tried photoshop, but the program was too huge and ran too slowly and the features for things that I really needed (like "magic wand" type selections for removing backgrounds) simply were not accurate enough to be of use to me. Even MORE recently, the company has decided I'm going to make videos to help people better understand some of the equipment, and the science behind it (I'm in forensics). This is something I know basically nothing about, as my personal experience being on camera has largely been related to avoiding it if possible.

So I'm looking for a couple things: Suggestions for software for video editing--I need a few features for piecing things together, probably splicing in photos, adding voiceovers or text for language translations, and features that will help me manage and reduce background noise, which I expect it is not possible to get rid of. I'll likely just be using my phone to take video, since it's worked out pretty well for photos thus far and I have it on hand. I could also use suggestions for some equipment for basic sets. I'm mainly concerned with cheap functional equipment for diffuse lighting. I would LOVE a green screen, but frankly, we don't have a good space for a proper one at the moment. I would also really like suggestions for a computer monitor that would work well for photo and video work. Right now I mainly work on a laptop, but I would like to hook it up to a larger monitor with a larger brighter screen. I need very accurate colors and have to be able to spend a good eight hours a day (or longer) staring at it fairly frequently. I personally don't feel the need to spend a car's worth on a monitor, but the company has given me a lot of freedom in terms of budget.

For software, I will definitely recommend Adobe Premiere Elements. It's a pared-down version of Premiere that I think will work well for your needs. I'm not sure if it's subscription-based now, since I bought my copy before they started that stuff — but I suspect it is. Worth it, though.

As for a monitor, I don't really have any specific suggestions. I'm a professional graphic designer and I've honestly never invested in the "perfect" monitor. A huge part of color accuracy is how your monitor is calibrated. You can have an expensive monitor, but if it's not calibrated well you're not going to get good results.

So basically: Having a really good monitor certainly won't hurt, and will be better than a laptop, but I wouldn't bother spending a fortune on a super mega nice one.