How is Photoshop diff from Corel Painter & Adobe Illustrator?

Question

I currently use Photoshop exclusively for all my image editing & graphic creation, but I want to know about other software that I could use.

Which of these 3 is the best for creating Graphics & Original Artwork?

Is Illustrator Vector based?

What type of stuff can I create with Corel Painter?

Answer 1

As kris said, Photoshop is primarily designed for the alteration and manipulation of Photographs.  That said, it also has powerful capabilities for image creation.  Painter is a better tool for the imitation of natural media such as oil paint and watercolor, and has a greater variety of and more control over brushes.  Illustrator is Vector-based, and is best for scalable type and graphics, although Photoshop has had vector tools for a while now.  All these tools have a lot of overlap, and can be used for image creation.  They can all use photographic and scanned input.  Which is best depends on how you like to work.

Answer 2

photshop is really designed for alteration and manipulation of photographs.

the other are designed for creating images. Although you can create images in photshop as well.

In terms of what you can create...well that depends on your imagination, the options are endless.