My D is interested in design and advertising. She is a HS junior. I was thinking of encouraging her to learn how to use photoshop. Or is there something else she may enjoy more? I was thinking of something that mostly she would enjoy -but also would be helpful in school
Thanks
My younger son plays around a lot with GIMP - https://www.gimp.org/- like photoshop but open source. I pretty much despise the current version of photoshop, but might like it better if I’d ever actually taken a class or tutorial so that I wouldn’t be so annoyed by all the ways it got changed from the version I had before.
Thanks -will look into it. It looks like now photoshop is a subscription service
You may be able to find and buy an older version of Photoshop for a one-time fee if you don’t want to subscribe. I bought Creative Suites 6 (which includes photoshop), just before it became annual subscriptions. You may also be able to get a good price for students at the local U bookstore.
Thanks HImom
tell her about account management in advertising agencies - it’s a big career path with lots of jobs
In addition to Photoshop, Illustrator and Indesign are the other programs that she might want to master.
All of those are part of creative suite. It has about 6 or more programs including Adobe Acrobat.
Yes they obviously are, but some are used by graphics design folks more often than others. I am just saying which ones are more important to master out of the bunch. Even if your D decides against a career in this field, graphic design skills are very much transferable skills.
Plus, there is a big upside of learning Photoshop for girls especially - it is one thing to hear about “photoshopped” images of models etc., it is a totally different thing to be able to spot what was actually photoshopped. 
Yes, knowing Photoshop (and InDesign and Illustrator) is a versatile skill. My mom is entirely self-taught using tutorials that are freely available. She made a second career in graphic design with it. I learned by taking a community college class. And I second the side benefit of not being so easily fooled by photoshopped images.
I would think InDesign would be a better start but you can get the photographers bundle (Photoshop and Lightroom) for $9.99/month. I use Lightroom much more than Photoshop. Most do not find Photoshop intuitive but Adobe has lots of free tutorials now, I just don’t have time as a working professional. (And in the middle of college search )
YouTube has tons of free videos. To be honest, I find Creative Suite 6 intimidating. I got it for my nonprofit but am still slowly learning it. Microsoft publisher is the program I learned on and much more intuitive but less powerful.
Thanks everyone!
@rumrunner I looked up account management and sent her a link- thanks!
Photoshop is an Important tool. You can buy photoshop elements which is a slightly paired down version and works just great, for maybe $80.