@JamesStaddon, I must respectfully disagree with you on the Photoshop vs. Photoshop Elements issue.
I have heard numerous times that Photoshop Elements was a viable alternative for “cheap” photographers who didn’t want to spend $600 for Photoshop.
To quote from this article on Adorama:
Photoshop Elements started out as a seriously stripped-down image-editing program for amateurs, but it has been loaded with so many features, it can now do at least 80 percent of what CC can do
I’m guessing that from your background as a professional photographer and designer, you wouldn’t consider Elements as an option. However, most amateur photographers probably don’t need that other 20% of features that Photoshop offers. The article on Adorama highlights some of the main differences. It also gave an interesting link to ElementsXXL which claims to be a plugin to bring back most of the features of Photoshop. I have no idea whether it actually does what it says it does, but since Adorama recommends it, I would think it must be at least somewhat credible. It costs $50.00, which is still a whole lot less than the full version of Photoshop!
Here’s some more reading on Photoshop Elements for photographers: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/168428-photoshop-elements-12-review-a-cheap-better-alternative-for-most-photographers
Of course, I don’t recommend Photoshop at all! I firmly believe that you ought to invest some time in learning to use GIMP and see if you can’t make that work before spending any money on Adobe software. I only wish I had spent more time trying to learn to use open-source software before I “invested” in Lightroom.