Have you tried Paint.NET? It's definitely a PS looking application. It doesn't have all of the advanced features of either PS or GIMP, but IMHO it features most of the essentials. It probably has a couple to three years before it will be in GIMP territory (version 4.0), but I can pretty much make anything I need, now plus there's lots of plugins in the appropriate forum section. You'll need .NET 2.0 installed, but I think .NET 3.0 is going to be required for the next major version. The developers are well aware of what is missing and are making strides to head in the right direction. I simply can't stand that GIMP UI (it's the Blender of the 2D world ), so I'm throwing my support behind this one.

(I'm doing my best to turn this thread back into a Paint.NET thread. lol, it seems I've been shanghaied. ).

I recently licensed Art Rage 2 for $20. It's a completely different animal all together and is a poor man's Dogwaffle. If you want to paint with natural looking paint, though, it will allow for that most definitely. My fiancee was fascinated by the realistic paint mixing when using different colors of the brush and the palette knife. I kind of just play around doing that too sometimes. It almost seems too real.