Speaking as graphic designer myself, it's an extremely competitive field and you will definitely need some sort of specialized education via college or university into it if you want a steady paying job. Just being good with a computer and photoshop mean nothing, you need a solid grasp on a load of softwares as well as knowledge in various stuff related to it.
One thing that is important to know is that this kind of job can get extremely tedious and it's pretty rare to see people doing this kind of job for most of their life, unless you really are passionate about it. I've been doing it for 3 years and i'm already getting tired of it, currently part timing it mixed with illustration and working on getting into the game industry instead.
Another sad reality of this job is that you need to accept you won't always produce satisfying work and you still need to sell this work, it's a big bag of mystery as sometime to live out of it, you will need to do crappy and boring jobs. The vast majority of clients will come to you with crappy budget and you need to pull something decent out of it respecting your hourly wage or contract. If you go with a big firm and work on big projects, then you will have to worry about fighting for your spot as it's extremely dynamic and they won't hesitate to replace you with fresh people if you aren't innovative enough.
If you want your own business, be ready to spend a good bit of money on softwares, hardware, publicity and so on.
In short if it's your passion, go ahead, if you are in for the money, forget it.
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