My suite

Getting started can be a bit of a headache.

Let's talk about my setup, and you can copy it or use some of the ideas to help you get started quicker.

Applications

My main apps for graphic design are Photoshop and Inkscape.

I don't use Illustrator

Many people will say that I should be using Illustrator for graphic design. While I agree conceptually, in practice, I find Illustrator to be an unreasonably frustrating app to work with. As with all things from them, Adobe insist upon breaking common keyboard shortcuts and various other standard desktop paradigms.

Raster — Photoshop

I mostly work with raster imagery and employ various programmatic filters to achieve the effects I want. Photoshop provides these features in their "blending effects" menu for every layer, and bakes the effects into a raster image so that it isn't continually using the CPU to render.

Vector — Inkscape

When I need to work with vectors, Inkscape has always been enough. I edit the vectors in Inkscape and then if anything further needs to be done, I just import the SVG file into whatever other apps I'm using. Inkscape has the benefit of abiding by the pure SVG format specifications, and that is its native format, so any file you create should look nearly identical in any other location. It can also export to all the common raster formats, with alpha channel if available. The only thing to be aware of is that fonts are not embeddable, so either duplicate your text layers and convert them to paths before saving, or use a tool such as Nano to embed your font.

Colours — Color Picker

Windows doesn't have many actual features, only some basic apps that are frankly badly built and never polished beyond a façade.

You can get a colour picker app in PowerToys, a suite of useful desktop features that honestly should be in Windows by default. PowerToys is developed by users like you and me, and if their app idea is approved and sufficiently polished, it gets included in the PowerToys app.

3D — Blender

I don't do much 3D work but I've tinkered with Blender on and off for a few years. It's got a bit of a learning curve, but once you crack the basics, you can make a bunch of models and renders and see where it takes you.