I’ve heard digital artists rave about Krita, which is free, and Clip Studio Paint, which is a much lower-cost one-and-done payment. I don’t know of any good alternatives for photo editing, though I’m sure there must be some out there.
The last Photoshop I used was PS7 (before Creative Suite debuted.) It was hella powerful, but had a steep learning curve. At the time I was flirting with becoming a Web designer, so I gave PS a shot. But since it was more of a hobby for me I decided it was too expensive to buy upgrades (and the laptop I had then couldn’t handle anything more anyway.) I doubt I’d ever go back to it, unless I could find an older non-subscription version really cheap. These days I play around on my tablet with Autodesk Sketchbook and dev.macgyver’s Photo Editor (both are free), and I can do most of what I want to do. It’s not always easy, but I get there eventually. 
