I actually never used PS but rather less expencive alternative instead ... I'm a Scot ... Gimp in conjunction with InkSpot & Blender do me fine ... all Free.
Oh, I did use Corel, Adobe & Quark back in the 80s ... man, they were dear too.
i have GIMP and had a trial of CS and i can say that the GIMP all though its slightly harder to find your way around is actually just as good, ok so it doesn't have some of the fancy filters but its a good replacement and its FREE