I've working with Photoshop for 8 years but for pure organic painting satisfaction, Corel Painter 9 works out the best. You can do wonderful things in Photoshop but Painter and a Wacom table is the nearest thing to real paintin'. Look at Bert Monroy's art for what can be done with Photoshop. He has training videos at Lynda.com. Here is a photo I modified in Painter.