I enjoy photography as much as crafts and art projects. Love, love playing in Photoshop. There's so much you can do with Photoshop. There's definitely a learning curve. You can't sit down at Photoshop and expect to create jaw dropping images in the first session. It takes years to master the software and even then it's just the tip of the iceberg with what PS can do. But it's so worth it! And over time you will get better and better and things will be easy instead of a struggle.
I've learned to document the steps I used to create a procedure. Even if you follow a tutorial online that tutorial can vanish in the masses of the internet when you realize you forgot what steps it took to create a specific project and often you stumble into your own version even when following someone else's instructions. So write down some notes, take some screen shots of your layers and workspace as you are working. Even the order of layers can make all the difference in the world.
I know a lot of people aren't happy that you can no longer buy the CC version of PS but have to lease it monthly. I like that it's leased for a reasonable fee. The full PS cost was quite prohibitive for a toy. If you are a professional photographer or graphic design artist then you need PS (or Lightroom) but when you're just using the software to play, $700-800 is a lot to pay.
This photo is a compilation of two photos using a displacement filter. It's quite basic and simple and I love the result. The little girl looks like she was painted on the fence and over time the image has faded and been overtaken by vines.