Welcome aboard! I would't call Piri Reis or renaissance cartographers tolkien-esque o_O about softwares I started with gimp a few years and now I'm working with photoshop and I wouldn't go back to gimp ( which is still a pretty good software) I have no particulat problem using photoshop. If you have some decent Ram and not a crappy graphic card I guess it will be ok. Btw you should be more accurate on what kind of tutorial you are looking for so people can help you better