Wow, such great stories you all have!!
I've been sitting here for 5 minutes trying to remember the first graphics editing program I ever used and I believe it was a simple paint program on the C64 called doodle. There may have been others. I also remember an app called print shop that did signs, posters and banners using a dot matrix printer. It was very crude but at a distance, the banners looked pretty cool.
Actually, my interest in graphics began when I bought my first computer (VIC-20) in the early 80s. I loved all the games. On the VIC-20, you could create what are called "sprites". They were 16x16 pixel blocks, where each pixel could be one of 16 colors. You could switch back and forth between various blocks to create animations. You could also move the blocks (sprites) around the screen and detect when 2 sprites came in contact with one another. From these basic building blocks, you can see how a game could be easily created. I wrote several, one called ZOM Attack. I wonder if it's still around somewhere these days. I also wrote a little sprite editor in commodore BASIC that allowed me turn off and on, as well as color the pixels in a sprite. I could then change it slightly to create animations for my games. It was very tedious stuff but I loved it. I guess I'm just geeky like that.
Anyway, after playing around with a bunch of mediocre graphics apps, bundled with various scanners, I came across a crippled demo copy of Paint Shop Pro. I thought it was a nice package so I had to have the full version. I had already played around with Photoshop a little but found it bulky, slow and overkill for what I needed. Over time, PSP got better and better until it was upgraded into crappiness, somewhere around version 8 or 9, I believe.

That happens to apps all too frequently in my opinion.
By this time, I'd had all I could stomach of MS Windows and moved to Linux. Best move I ever made. I still feel the same way about Photoshop. It's a powerful program but why would I want PS when GIMP does everything I need ..and it's FOSS.

Thanks for all the trips down memory lane.
Oh yeah, I'm a twenty something too!!
