Need the simplest instruction from the beginning

I've found a considerable variety of video tutorials on a considerable variety of versions of FF. Most go off the deep end for me.
I'm at the level where I'm still trying to figure out why some filters seem to be represented by a life saver and others aren't! I'm at the level where I'd like to take a photo of my favorite tree (or whatever), bring in that jpg to FF, and apply one or more filters to it and get a nicer image than I started with. I have the standalone version of FF but just can't get started. Is there a secret stash of "FF 101 for Dummies" videos anywhere? The text help file is good for looking up details, but I need a whole bunch of simple step-by-step instruction. I'm pretty good at a couple dozen (non-Adobe) photo editors, but FF is so… different in its user interface.Thanks for any direction.