mid-life-crisis

Thank you turbodak for your feedback. Ill try a shorts 360 first.

Hello Everyone, I'm keen in learning to paint liveries, I've read some threads here and watched a few YouTube videos and everyone seems to use Photoshop as the main go to tool. I'm not too keen on spending the money on the tool until I know 1, I'm going to enjoy it 2, I'm confident in painting liveries and 3, I do a good job at doing them, but I was wondering if I'm best to learn using it? Is PhotoShop the main tool compatible with all aircraft and flight sims or is something like GIMP ok as well? Completely new to this but up for the challenge, sorry for the daft questions, any tips and words of advise would be very helpful.