I unpracticed and unskilled at digital art and art in general. Anything other than move to background or foreground confused me. Thank you for explaining layers. I supposed they work in photo editing too?
i wanted to try lightroom but it's like 15 bucks a month! I ain't no pro. So I downloaded gimp. It has a spaceshit (im not correcting that) feel, too. It also has tons of plugins to confuse or simplify. So I will try darkroom maybe.
I don't edit many photos. I assume photoshop has plenty of tools designed for that. I could easily upload a photo into Krita, put a layer on top, and do much of the same, and plenty of other things, freehand. If you look closely at tanned Ass Face, you'll see what looks like texture or something on the skin. If I was editing a photo doing this, I'd most likely grab a tool and buff that out so it looks smooth and blends. I was planning to do that step here but due to time constraints and budget cuts, I had to leave that out, for now.
Every program out there suits the user. I'd suggest using whatever you're comfortable with, as long as it performs. You'll spend a lot of time learning, you'll get good with that program; other software will feel like a foreign language.