Photoshop beast or beauty

There are a tons of software for editing images, for creating graphics and for other things that are related to pictures. "Picture is worth the 1000 words", but how much is worth tool which made that picture? If it is the case that picture is hand painted by artist, then tool is priceless, but when the tool is program then it has it's price, which can be from 0 to a lot of $$$$.