Failing twice

In one day last week, I discovered two new things that I'm not very good at doing.
1. Making fudge. I followed the Kraft Fantasy Fudge Recipe to the letter. I didn't have a candy thermometer, so I cooked and stirred constantly during the rolling boil of a hot sticky mess for the prescribed 5 minutes. Then I added the chocolate chips and fluff. Shortly after I poured it into the square pan, it turned hard as a rock. No soft, gooey fudgey-ness. Just straight to the trash can. Boo. So now I've bought a candy thermometer. Maybe the next batch will turn out ok.
Any tips would be much appreciated.

2. Photoshop. I didn't want to do anything fancy like change contrast or make beautiful art. I just wanted to arrange some scientific (boring, I know) figures on a page to insert into a manuscript. It's just not as simple as copying, pasting, pointing, and clicking. You have to make sure all of the figures are the same resolution (who knew?). And you have to know exactly what size they should be (who knows?). Why can't they make these things intuitive? Well, I've spent the better part of 4 days at work, just to make 4 figures. Fun times. I need some fudge.