I am not a graphics wizard, but I have been needing to do some serious graphics work on some web projects. I am trying to learn the Gimp, with mixed success. I was just looking at the Adobe Creative Suite package (ouch!) and realized that I was not aware of any direct open source alternatives. I keep hearing GIMP being thrown around as though it’s the hands down answer for all graphic-related tasks, but as far as I can tell, it seems mainly to be a equivalent, or at least a rival, to Adobe Photoshop. Are there any open source alternatives to such programs as Fireworks and Illustrator? Even Dreamweaver (not exactly a graphics package) is lacking a serious open source competitor; the version of NVU in openSUSE isn’t even using standards compliant xhtml, and QuantaPlus is a poor subsitute!
Is there not enough interest in these areas for serious open source development? Personally I find the open source pro-audio sector (with JACK, Ardour, Hydrogen, Jamin, Rakarrack and an arsenal of Ladspa effects) to be much farther along than most open source graphic applications.
So what do you guys think? Is there anything “beyond GIMP”?