I've often read recommendations where people will something like 'Gimp is not as user friendly but a fair alternative if you can't afford to drop the $$$ that P

I've often read recommendations where people will something like 'Gimp is not as user friendly but a fair alternative if you can't afford to drop the $$$ that Photoshop costs'. Having never used Photoshop I can't comment on how they compare but this type of comment did make me feel nervous about using Gimp and even probably negatively affected my progress in learning to use it. Now, having used Gimp a reasonable amount I think it's about as easy to use as such a feature rich program can be expected to be. Unfortunately because it's a program that I don't use very often, there tends to be a lot forgotten each time I return to it.