Photoshop or Illustrator?

Illustrator is for making vector based illustrations, and it has tools which excel in making logos and design elements. Photoshop is for creating raster/pixel based projects, and excels in editing mash ups of existing images, or creating new raster images.

They are both very different tools. I am not a graphic designer, but I found that investing time to learn the basics of Photoshop has benefited me, as it allows me to easily create and edit images for my applications. I am yet to try Illustrator.

I do sometimes find that I want to create vector style graphics/icons/logos and struggle to do this in Photoshop. It often feels as though I am forcing it to do something which it is not designed to do (abusing pen and select tools, and fudging layers together), and I imagine those are the times when I should really be using Illustrator.

Personally I would use Illustrator mainly do to the fact that it specializes in vector images (compared to photoshop's specialization in rastor) that scale well, this is especially important for mobile devices.

Of course this is simply my own opinion (and to be truthful I am no designer, but a developer) and so at the end of the day, you should use the software you are most efficient and comfortable with!

Though again, I do recommend Illustrator for vector art.

I use both programs in my opinion Photoshop is easier to learn, but Illustrator is better for creating logos and vector base graphics. Photoshop is good for fixing an repairing photos etc. if you are not in a hurry try photoshop first and move on to illustrator, this way you will have an idea of how to move around the programs.

Charles

I use Gimp and Inkscape, they're both full feature open source replacements for Photoshop and Illustrator respectively. Charles, Dane and Mark are right Photoshop and Gimp are designed to edit raster images(=> bitmaps => rectangular array of pixels) such as photos or digital art, and Illustrator and Inkscape are used to manipulate scalar vector graphics(=>nodes=>paths=>lines, curves, polygons) with which you can create logos, models, diagrams, et cetera. In my experience you won't be needing Photoshop for lack of features in Gimp, unless you need a really specialized tool to do one small touch up, and there's probably a tutorial online on how to do it in Gimp without that specific feature. So try them they're fine tools and they won't break your bank.