In stock Industry standard is industry standard
Adobe products give you all the tools you need but none of the knowledge for using them and can be a bit daunting for artists who are used to RL drawing or painting. The best way to approach it is to create a work flow and learn which other tools work best for you from there. No, this does not replace learning artistic fundamentals.
Pros
It can do just about anything I can imagine needing for creating or editing a 2D image. It is a lot less messy than physically drawing/painting and gives an amazing range of visual solutions. Am a huge fan of layers and ctrl-z: the ability to undo mistakes, go back, or work on a layer without screwing up the rest of the image is a lovely aspect of creating art digitally.
Cons
I often have no idea what I'm doing unless its one of those things I've learned through a decade of using the program, or else if there's a demo online.
