What's a good software to design Web graphics?

[Siervocal]

I tried out Macromedia Fireworks, but for what I have seen it is to actually design a website, not the graphics in it. I would like something that will help me with buttons, backgrounds, layouts, etc.. Any suggestions? Please don't suggest anything that will require me to put up with advertising or spyware. Thanks!

[luvv2rock]

I've gotten into GIMP here lately and found it very useful. Fireworks is really good at a lot of things, but GIMP is more versatile for designing the graphics. Honestly I'd design in GIMP and optimize in Fireworks.

gimp-win.sourceforge.net (http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/)

[Ted Drake]

I've found fireworks to be the best for graphics, buttons, and shapes. Photoshop is best for images.

Fireworks has better controls for setting the rectangles, shading, and bevels.

[Daniel B]

www.adobe.com

Create an account, download a 30-day trial of Photo Shop 2.
It has all the features.

[DEAN L]

Macromedia Fireworks is extremely comprehensive in web graphics features. It's integrates seamlessly with other Macromedia applications too. You can design full navigation bars and even generate the code for it, to insert straight into your webpage. Fireworks is also good for GIF animations and graphic edits. Although, photoshop by far exceeds the image editing capabilities of fireworks. If you want a solid suite to develop the graphics for yourwebsite, use Photoshop to polish up and produce your graphics, use fireworks to add the magic and process them and then integrate your work into your web design app or code editor. SAMS do some very good publications on these applications, I learnt a lot about fireworks from those books.