Photoshop is the industry standard, and if you hope to move on as a professional artist, thats where you should concentrate. Also, it is the leader in graphics editing technology ... PSP lags behind be several versions on most things. Also PSP is aimed at the Hobby market and that is quite noticeable by the interface and the lack of serious tools and emphasis on novelty items. The four basic tools I use on every single piece that I make are not available in PSP. Why? good question. Not cute enough I think. I was more than happy to delete it from my system after reviewing it. I'll stick with Photoshop very happily.