I used to think that After Effects was just for animating but have found it very useful doing my strip, which I guess is just a staccato animation. No doubt, AE is a big ticket item. I'm not sure that i agree with thundering1 that AE won't let you do the "extensive compositing of multiple images/renders/passes that Photoshop can". Most of the filters in AE are from Photoshop and then a "skad" more from other sources. (That's a full skad, btw). But then, I'm also only speaking from a Photoshop 7 POV, I've never stepped inside CS. If you're making still images, you could easily keep a lot of that cash and make some custom brushes in Photoshop. I've also been a big fan of Painter and it's Image Hose. All the Liquid Stealth pics were posted in Photoshop with occasional quick trips to AE and/or Painter.