inkscape vs photoshop

That was the title of the email I found in my inbox (won't disclose the sender, we exchanged in the past some Inkscape advices), I feel my stance on Free software was not strong enough but it was too early in the morning and usually I don't want to scare people away:

> Hi Nicu,

Hi,

> How are you?

I am about to release a project I was working on int he last months, is an icon set made with Inkscape, check a preview: [link removed]

> I've been wanting to edit, cut out sections and amend pictures, and I played around with Abode's photoshop - and I thought had a number of
> useful tool over what inkscape could offer. Have you found this also? Do

Those are different tools used for different purposes (Adobe has
Illustrator, which is an equivalent to Inkscape).

Inkscape is a vector editor and Photoshop is a raster editor. Of course,
each one has a few features from the other, but you should use the best
tool for the job.

And in a complex task you may probably use both, for the example in the
icon set above the illustrations are create with a vector editor
(Inkscape) and they are put together in a collage with a raster editor
(GIMP).

> you use Photoshop to edit pictures?

I do a lot of photography so I use extensively raster images, however,
as I believe in freedom and use Free Software as much as I can, I use
GIMP (www.gimp.org) as a Photoshop replacement.

> I want to get a full version of photoshop, doesn't have to be the latest
> version. Do you know where I can download these sort of tools for free?

Photoshop is proprietary and commercial software, you can't legally get
a copy for free, you have either to pay (maybe with a student discount?)
or pirate it. I can't give advice about pirating :)

Notes:

• of course I avoided the reply "I feel like sh*t" and details about why;
• the link was removed, my friends know it, is still confidential until the release;
• nope, I won't link to thepira^W :D :D :D