Well, I guess it depends on the type of ad you will have to use one product or another. For banners in a web environment, then, I would recommend Image Ready, from Adobe, which comes with Photoshop.
Image Ready allows you to make animated banners and with Photoshop you can compose any image to use in the banners.
Flash is also being used a lot now to make banner ads and the truth is that they give quite good results.
As far as photo retouching is concerned, I recommend Photoshop again, although there are many other interesting programs that can help you.
Several articles with tips and tutorials to create banners:
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