Photoshop is a great "Swiss Army Knife" for bitmapped graphic files. Very few graphic professionals are without it, and increasing numbers of video and still photographers have it as well. It can do tons of things by itself, from color correction to special eftects, and with optional $$ plugins, you can generate whole worlds. Some artists generate entire paintings inside the program, and others use it alongside other software such as Painter, Illustrator, Bryce, or Strata3D.
Photoshop requires a substantially well-equipped computer -- speed, RAM, and disk space --to operate at its best. If you have those available, then you can dive right in. Otherwise, you may need to compromise.
No one I know of uses every function. You could possibly be intimidated by the enormous number of features and options; if your needs are very modest, there are a few scaled down programs that might meet your needs, some for graphics conversion, some for color correction, some for minor retouching.
In short , it's a great tool that I definitely need for my professional work. If your situation is demanding, you won't regret it. But there are some intermediate options if you only want to acheive smaller goals.
