Well, as a Leo, I KNOW you should take everything I say and just run with it without question... and stuff... yeah... ooookay, nevermind...
Yeah, you can paint with PS, the difference of Painter is that it really does look like natural media brushes and response to paper - which is the difficult thing to do in PS. I like to play with it, but like Kurtsart says, it's sluggish. One thing I found I like to do is start with a smaller image size in PS like 800x600 and do the main blocking of objects and background "washes", then blow it up to 4000x3000 (and then bring in Painter) and what you have are nice soft blended washes that didn't take forever to "draw" in Painter (try a huge brush in Painter and run it across the canvas - bring a book to read...). Then you can start on the finer details and work faster.

That's a really cool relaxing pic Kurt!

As for the lens distortion problem... I really miss shooting 4x5! I've got a Horseman 6x9 field cam that does a nice job, but everyone wants it shot on digital now for the instant feedback - ugh! Been looking into the Nikon 85mm tilt/shift lens, but I don't have the $1,300 right now. I've gotten out of architectural photography, so when I do the lens corrections in PS it's not that critical.

BUT!!! Check out www.hartblei.com - their "Super-Rotator Lenses"! Costs about half the price, and the images look great - so there may yet be another lens coming in a couple of months...

Anyway, the boy was sick and up most of the night (he's 2 1/2 and VERY tired), and his mommy and I are gonna take him to the doctor in a little while - I'll check in later-
-Lew ;-)