Gimp or photoshop what would you recommend?

[ntz]

...

I am not in disagreement with you .. you're right and reasonably wording in many things and you're especially right in reminding what was the original question, so:

I use rawtherappee for editing raw files but I am wondering what I should use for other edits.
I am not planning to do anything fancy, but I want to a) remove dust b) change back grounds and cover some small annoying things.
In the past I have used GIMP, but I find really hard (probably I am the problem I am not that good with this sort of thing).

Should I a)try some more GIMP training or buy photoshop? (I am not very confident that I will be good with photoshop to be honest, I don't have very good control of a mouse or even a tablet).

definitely go ahead with Gimp ... forget Photoshop now, problem is not in editor but in your photo editing skill and knowledge .. as for resources, there are (relatively) plenty on youtube, try for example this channel .. gain some confidence with photo editing .. you said that you use the RawTherapee already, his counterpart is Gimp ..

that's my opinion, nothing less and nothing more - based upon me having access to both apps .. photoshop is (almost) no difference in fundamental edits, it's more automated in doing additional (and covert) optimalizations along with a basic editing (which I don't consider very good) but all that annoying stuff like cloud saves, licenses, remote storage is not worth that until you gain a knowledge of what you're doing and what you want to do with your photos ..

I need to repeat myself -- once you'll gain some confidence with basic (I don't like this word, let's say with "enough") raster editing then spread your wings and fly and give a try to other (paid) software ..

 

[TV_or_not_TV]

GIMP. Plus, it's free, open-source and runs on Linux, too!

 

[tim.bennett]

They money spent of photoshop could be spent on affinity and a udemy course on how to do photo editing in it.

It works similar to photoshop but is a little more focused than photoshop.

My personal flown is DxO photolab and what can't be done there I do in Affinity photo. I have used Lightroom, capture one and photoshop in the past.

 

[terry_g]

I have been using Gimp for quite a few years now. I have also been running Linux
on all the computers I have owned. There are lots of tutorials on the web on using Gimp.

 

[clippingclient]

100% Adobe Photoshop

 

[RichieS]

There are tonnes of tutorials for GIMP on YT