Faffing 1

I decided that if I am ever going to learn how to use photoshop, I needed to decide to do it and allocate some time to it.  Being on holiday seemed to be a reasonable time.  So I put my dummies guide in SHH's suitcase, along with the camera manual and a certain course book (And no, the extra weight had nothing to do with the wheel disappearing in flight).  Today, I started early, too early for good light initially, but by the time I'd stood on the balcony in my PJs taking pictures of the trees for some time, I'd come to the decision that today was going to be a tree shot of some sort with some faffing around with sliders if only I could find the sliders.  Gavin Hoey recommended Clarity, but you wouldn't believe how long it took me to find that!  Still not sure about why I got that and then when I went to Open Image all my Sliders disappeared and I got the other things for Quick or Expert.  And does it matter to photoshop whether or not I shoot in RAW?  And then do I have to save my file as a JPEG to be able to use it for Blip?  Any answers to this questions will be gratefully accepted.  Quality of Blips may be more variable than usual this week depending on how long it takes me to reach "I've done enough faffing for today" point.