I use Photoshop (version 7, I know I'm in the dark ages) for photo and image manipulation and Fireworks CS3 for creation and everything else. Although, recently, I have found myself using Fireworks for a lot of the things I generally use Photoshop for.

Fireworks is fast, powerful and relatively simple and easy to use. I love the text tool, it is far superior to Photoshop's in my opinion.