soft ware.  The other wear is for clothes.

Call me "spellcheck"

Photoshop is a huge and powerful tool. I took a thirty week course on it which taught me quite a lot, but the thing to bear in mind is that there are many ways within it to achieve the same result. If you are serious about photo editing a more gentle way in is to buy Photoshop Elements which is a whole lot cheaper. Photoshop now is by yearly subscription. Some swear by Gimp which is a free editing tool.

Spell checks, they save me quite a lot of embarrassment!

Sorry, I thought you were serious. Silly me!

There may be some odd experts out there who can give advice on how to master soft wear and even experts out there who can give advice on how to master soft wear, but where are the odd experts out there who can give advice on how to master software and where are the even experts out there who can give advice on how to master software? If this seems odd to you or even if it seems peculiar, maybe you’ll want to check what layers you have on and what layers you’re on? Whether you’re a master or not, you don’t need a mistress, you can check spellings, in the layers you’re on, using software spellcheckers and check the soft wear layers that you have on, whether checked, chequered, plaid or plain, using the weather. Sometimes your best choice might be freeware software or shareware software, such Paint.NET or Gimp, respectively, along with free soft wear and cheap soft wear, such as that from charities and jumble sales, but at other times you’d be advised to respect the experts and check whether you want to use a cheque to pay for software, such as Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture, and soft wear from good soft goods retailers, which may or may not specialise in options suitable for different weathers. If you were to choose paid for software and plaid soft wear, you can take an artistic selfie by setting a narrow aperture on your camera and using Aperture or similar photo editing software to check the spelling of the caption in the text layer, but if you’re not a master photographer, graphic designer and fashion guru you’ll likely want to remove your plaid soft wear first, checking where you put it lest you want to wear it again. Alternatively, you might like to create an artistic portrait of your mistress by asking her either to wear something plain and soft, or better still, to remove her soft wear entirely, because then, at least, you’ll see whether you like the spell that she can put on you when she’s soft and naked.

My anti virus software doesn't like Gimp and blocks the site. I'm not sure if the anti virus is over sensitive or there's a problem. I shall stick with Photoscape, but beware later additions have malware

Davie  8)

I don't have the expertise to do much more than crop my photos and add a watermark when needed.  However I have found www.faststone.org to be very easy to use.  It also comes with a well explained user guide.

Gimp is good, picasa is also free, elements or Lightroom are excellent too but cost some, I use photoshop but only scratch the surface as it's a huge and powerfull tool if you need it.

I use Lightroom and PS extensively for work so feel free to ask. Dont waste money on courses though. There is so much free tuition online and the best way to learn is by googling for how to do what you need to do. Learn by trial.

I rather enjoyed my thirty week Photoshop course, as the group of twelve all got on well and it was good to share the results and learn together. I can understand why some would not wish to join a class but I, despite some doubts initially did find it very helpful. 

I use Lightroom and PS extensively for work so feel free to ask. Dont waste money on courses though. There is so much free tuition online and the best way to learn is by googling for how to do what you need to do. Learn by trial.

I rather enjoyed my thirty week Photoshop course, as the group of twelve all got on well and it was good to share the results and learn together. I can understand why some would not wish to join a class but I, despite some doubts initially did find it very helpful.

In my opinion, both Andy S and Rod B have made some good points with respect to Photoshop. I have the advantage of being neither a complete novice nor an expert at Photoshop and think I can understand what both are saying.

I suspect the best approach to learning to use Photoshop is dependent on one’s level of existing knowledge and on one’s objectives. Certainly, some Photoshop courses are very expensive, there are a lot of free tutorials available online and, perhaps especially for this type of software, learning by ‘doing’ or ‘trial and error’ is ultimately the most productive and, indeed, enjoyable approach. Conversely, learning to use a complicated program, such as Photoshop, can seem a daunting prospect, especially for a complete novice, and interacting with others – learning from and teaching them – can be rewarding both in terms of becoming proficient and in terms of shear enjoyment.

Despite having seemingly no good reason to use, or hence to learn, Photoshop it appeared on my computer at work one day. ‘Milllions of context sensitive buttons and numerous alternate ways of doing apparently the same thing’ was my initial bemused thought. Subsequently, I discovered that I could attend Photoshop courses for free if I wished: if the university offers a course, being staff, I’m welcome to attend it, providing it’s not oversubscribed by real students and providing I don’t waste time messing about when I’m supposed to be doing actual work. I learnt loads in a matter of just three or four half-day courses, plus I met many different and interesting people: people from every faculty, from the most geeky astrophysicists to the most whacky pickled fish painters, were attending. It seems Photoshop is a bit like Word in that ‘everyone’ is supposed to know how to use it nowadays. Now I can use Photoshop a little bit and, if I were to invest more time, I could probably benefit from the free tutorials and learn more by ‘trial and error’. That probably wouldn’t have been the case before I attended those short courses.

The downside is that I now want Photoshop at home but, as it would only serve me as a toy, I can’t justify the cost. Fortunately, I have discovered that some ‘Photoshop skills’ do seem to be ‘semi-transferable’ in that they make it easier to learn to use other more affordable but still quite sophisticated programs, such a PaintshopPro. It’s somewhat similar to the way that learning some C++ programming code helps with learning other object oriented programming languages. Having a little, but not many, Photoshop skills and having a little but not much C++ programming knowledge is already reaping benefits at work. At least now I know enough to be able to communicate effectively with the audiovisual guys and the IT guys, and have a sense of what they should and shouldn’t reasonably be able to achieve, and I think they appreciate that because they seem to enjoy working with me.  At least that’s how I justify taking blatant advantage of the Investors in People initiative.

Photoshop is a tool in the same way as many other image editing programs. But its not about knowing everything it does but more a case of making it do what you want it to do when you need it to.

I guess its all about how often you use the photo editing software I dont use it often enought to feel at home with it

Thanks for all the comments
Pedants included
A

Elements is ideal,  gives most of what your are likely to ever need making full PS a bit OTT for home use..  I have both, for general photo reworking from the camera it does what's need.  If your were creating original work from a blank canvas then perhaps the requirements could be different.
I have Lightroom as well on a MacBook Air, can't say I use it much, it's good if you have large batch to work on at once.... but I tend to do a few at a time.
What is the task to be achieved? post a sample picture for editing and we can give tips.

As uk says, what are you trying to do.most basic editing can be done in free or cheaper software.
  Not used elements for a few years but is a cut down version of ps, so will do most things, I do use Lightroom wich is v good without requiring it degree to understand.
  Let us know what you want to do,or what you want help with.