Like Marigold I prefer Freehand,possibly because I was taught on it,but most people I know who use both Vector & Bitmap combine "Illustrator" with "Photoshop". The two are the most compatible,as they are both designed by Adobe and have some similar styles of plug-ins. Because Vector & Bitmap are such different types of programmes I don,t think you can use one set on the other,although there may be exeptions.I believe that "Fireworks" is also Vector based,and is cheaper and aimed at web designers, although I haven,t used it myself.