Photoshop CS has a really steep learning curve. It's made for serious photo editing. You might do better with Photoshop Elements which is for the everyday user, plus it's a whole lot cheaper. There are tons of videos on youtube showing people how to use the different versions. The biggest difference between the two is that Elements doesn't offer some of the automated steps that CS does. But there is a work around for just about everything to get most of the same effects. You can even create animated gifs with Elements.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 * Create an animated GIF
If you want just a free photo editing program to play with, try looking at Picassa.