I'm glad to be here

[Gamerprinter]

JF, they are completely different animals, one is CAD, the other is an image editor, so its difficult to Pro-Con. To further mix things up, I use Xara Xtreme which is a hybrid raster/vector application for all my maps. So many of us use all types of software to do our mapping.

GP

[JohnnFour]

I though GIMP had some vector functions, but I guess that reveals my level 0 mapper ranking.

I was checking out Adobe's Creative Suite. I'd love to use Illustrator for mapping. <checks pockets> Nope, no $1500 here. Maybe if I sold chocolate chip cookies at work?

[Midgardsormr]

Eh? Gimp and Photoshop are both raster editors. Feature-wise, they're very similar, but each has a few little tricks the other does not. For instance, I really wish Photoshop had an image hose feature like the Gimp's, and the standard cloud filter in Photoshop lacks some functionality.

Gimp, on the other hand, has a non-Windows-standard interface (naturally, since it was developed for Linux), which is off-putting for many users. I don't use it much, so I don't know what features PS has that I'd want if I were using Gimp all the time.

They're both very useful, even if you're primarily using CC. I use Photoshop to label my CC maps because text looks nicer that way.

edit: By the way, if you're looking for an affordable vector tool, take a look at Inkscape, which is an open-source project. It's still a bit rudimentary, but it's got the basics. Serif DrawPlus, Xara, and CorelDRAW are good commercial vector tools for much less than the Illustrator price tag.