Like bitmap programs, there's always alternative to photoshop such as Gimp. Vectoring programs on the other hand has a long history of standards namely flash, coreldraw and illustrator. Luckily, someone was kind enough to hunt down other programs down and made a list of them. Both open-source and commercial. Courtesy of slash-dot for the link.

Math Games: Vector vs. Raster

Guess I should learn how to use vectors too since Firefox gonna support SVG soon.

Ill stick to illustrator....hopefully with adobe eating macromedia, they will add abilities of freehand and flash into illustrator and make it more powerful

Nothing I didn't already know . I'm a raster /faux vector artist and proud of it (would use illustrator, but I don't have it)

man, I've tried vectoring like 7 times, and I always end up with crap, I use Illustrator, but I've tried it with photoshop too. I have to be doing something wrong, I know the basics..but, damn I suck at it.

i saw tutorial whoa! it looks really hard... takes time too.. haha..
but that doesnt keep me from getting to my goal! to see myself with another sub! (short TERM)
to be officially an artist with the passion, cause i only have the passion but without the skillz :p
i hope i have found my genre in art.. ^_^

I've really only tried vectoring a few times with little success. It's more akin to CAD than painting and since I'm more prone to using the layering features available in raster software anyway, it just doesn't make much sense for me to try the vectoring side of things.

I suppose I should open my mind to it though, since its scalability is important for walling at different resolutions.

I only have photoshop and I suppose I make rastor vectors too. As for people who find vectoring difficult, the trick is in identifying what is what in the image. Making a vector isn't just drawing lines and filling in colors, you have to be able to see each section as a part of a whole...

I'm not good at explaining things since I'm a knacky person... unspoken things click with me while what's laid out right before me may be hard to grasp...

Quote by Terra-chanI only have photoshop and I suppose I make rastor vectors too. As for
people who find vectoring difficult, the trick is in identifying what
is what in the image. Making a vector isn't just drawing lines and
filling in colors, you have to be able to see each section as a part of
a whole...
I'm not good at explaining things since I'm a knacky person... unspoken
things click with me while what's laid out right before me may be hard
to grasp...

A vector is defined in many ways..

Quote: If a font is a vector font or an image is a vector image, it is defined as lines of relative size and direction rather than as collections of pixels (the method used in bitmapped fonts and images). This makes it easier to change the size of the font or image, but puts a bigger load on the device that has to display the font or image. The term "outline font" means the same thing as vector font.

Quote: Digital image recorded in shapes, lines, angles and curves. The image is made up of mathematical formula and is not dependent on resolution. It therefore has a relatively small file size and can be enlarged to any size ...

It really isnt as difficult as it sounds^.^