Adobe is a greedy beast!

For PHOTO work, PSP is still my favorite PHOTO editor.
Jasc made a great product at a good price. Was easy to recommend.
Feel the same about XARA's XX for vector artwork. Easy to recommend.
The VECTOR graphics I have done in XARA Xtreme Pro 4 (XXP4) import very nicely into Adobe's Illustrator.
So far the printers have had no complaints about the XARA made files.
So why use Illustrator when I can ENJOY making them in XXP4 at 1/10th the cost?
Hopefully XARA will eventually take a share of the market from Adobe in the Vector program wars.
They have VERY strong roots in the industry. After all, XARA used to provide the speedy drawing engine for CorelDraw. When the lease was up, Xara did not renew the lease with Corel.
Xara decided to produce their OWN product and compete. So glad they did.
Of the 3 program families, Xara, Corel and Adobe, Xara is now my favorite for cost, fun, abilities for clipart, ads, flash pieces. Corel comes in second since they are maintaining the PSP line.
BUT back on topic... Still need to find another animation software...
XXP can make animated gifs but the process is different and I still don't have the hang of it.
They also don't have the built-n effects that AS3 does....

Will use AS3 as long as I can but really need to learn an alternative too...
Wanda, what do you use?