There are many free alternatives that can produce designs in for example: Inkscape - Gimp are similar to photoshop while it does has many tools and a learning curve, try to find ones your more comfortable with learning. Blender is good for creating variety of graphic designs;
I wouldn’t recommend getting paid programs. There isn’t any good nor bad programs to use there are some decent free software to use. Here is a thread related to graphic designing including many types of alternative software to pick and choose from.