I think the CS isn't that hard to learn: everybody can drag and drop. While the dialogue is a bit harder the scripting part is pretty hard.
I also used Dragonsongs My First Room tutorial, it's a very good one.
I had a good one for dialogue too, but I lost it. I'll look for it and post when I got it
I also use the Gimp (www.gimp.org) to edit images, it's much cheaper than PS but still as good as it
I also hope NIFLA will be finished, although it isn't going that fast. And when Oblivion is release it won't be usefull anymore