How do I start with Photoshop?

[Nerevar]

I'm new to the site and have been mapping with CC3 for a short time. I like it a lot but I find myself a bit frustrated with the symbols at times. Particularly when making forests and mountian rnages it always ends up looking like a bunch of cluttered symbols rather than a flowing location (I hope that makes sense).

I thought that if I were to use something like Photoshop it might help me to really get the style I imagine in my head, but I never even touched that software.

I've seen that there is plenty of help and tutorials on how to use it for map making but I need some more basic help.

I have a few questions I was hoping someone could help me with.

Are there different versions of it? Which should I use? Where is the best place to download it? Is it a one time cost or a subscription based software?

[Chick]

Photoshop is a fairly expensive single-cost program. The latest version I believe is CS7, but you can get earlier versions such as CS4 (the one I use) cheaper. Here is an ebay page showing some prices. http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/301473607340?rmvSB=true

There is a free alternative, which is not quite as sophisticated, but which a lot of people here use, called GIMP. If price is a factor, you might want to start there. http://www.gimp.org/

[Azélor]

The latest version is Photoshop CC and it's all in the clouds. It have advantages but also disadvantages. You might check the older versions if you don't want to pay too much.

I've found old version on PS on sale at some places like University COOP. 200$ for PS CS4 if I remember correctly. That was a couple of years ago and maybe it required a membership I don't remember.

[Deadshade]

Really go for PS only if you intend to use it fairly often. Otherwise I'd say it is not Worth a price in several hudreds $.
I use GIMP which is free and up to know I have still to find something that PS does and GIMP does not. The GIMP UI is practically identical to PS, the Learning curve is similar and even brushes which are specifically done for pS are recognised and used by GIMP.
For cartography I would say GIMP is 99,99% the same service as PS.
Frankly for recreationnal and intermittent use I recommend GIMP.

[Ascension]

I'll second Deadshade. Only get Photoshop if you plan to use it every day for the next 2 years and if you're that serious then get yourself a drawing tablet as well. The Photoshop CC single product use fee for the cloud is like 10 bucks a month, which isn't too bad really. If you get other products bundled in then it jumps, naturally. I, myself, use Photoshop CS from 2003... never saw a real need to upgrade for what I use it for.

[Nerevar]

Thanks for all the feedback, I'll check out GIMP first, it sounds like a lot of people are happy with it so it is most likely all I will need.