>I am a graduate of the world famous "random button clicking" school of graphic design.
Kek, me too!!!
gimp is acronym for Gnu Image Manipulation Program
It is open-source and was originally written for Gnu (one of the graphical user interfaces common on Linux), and has been ported to Windows. I use the Linux version.
It does have soft light, dodge, burn, glow, shadow but the results would not be identical to photoshop. I'll play around. Usually I just try to make my text very very readable with heavy fonts and color contrast and shadow or outline.
Lately I tried some drawing using an old android phone as a standalone graphics tablet. It's been so many decades since I tried sketching, have nearly lost the skill. Probably won't do much sketching. But it's good to add tools to one's graphics arsenal.