Hello everyone. I've been an occasional lurker on this forum for a few months now and this is my first post. This site/forum is extremely useful to me and I'm glad I've found you all.

I only have GIMP and Inkscape. I do not have a tablet. I used to be quite good with Photoshop during my high school years but that was a long time ago; Photoshop 6 and 7 were the last versions I used and I haven't any idea what version it is at now. I don't have the funds to buy it either (and I'm not going to download an illegal copy like I did in high school). I've also forgotten most of what I learned. So I'm basically back here to relearn everything. Some things are coming back to me quickly, like how much I hate lens flare (rarely ever "fits in" with a picture, almost useless), and how much I love clouds (so many uses!).

When I was younger I would draw basic maps for my RPG campaigns like most Gamemasters. But now that I'm grown up I don't fell that a pencil sketch will suffice. I will be starting a fantasy campaign over the Internet using a message board and it will be heavily influenced by geographic aspects like terrain and national borders, so a map made using GIMP (or another program) seems like the best choice. Again, I don't have the funds to purchase programs or a tablet like I want so everything is being done on the cheap.

I've been messing around with a few throwaway maps in my free time, testing out tutorials and trying to get techniques developed. Hopefully I can get to the point where I have my own WIP thread here...

But I do have some questions, if this is an appropriate time/place to ask them.

1 - How different are GIMP and Photoshop? What can one do that the other can't do?

2 - About how much does Photoshop cost these days? What version is it at? Are there other Adobe programs aside from Photoshop that assist with map-making?

3 - There are a lot of fantasy/medieval tutorials and maps here. But what about modern-day city tutorials? If I wanted to make a modern-day city map (mostly a road map, with "squares" and such for buildings) which tutorials would be best? I'm just curious. This seems like something there isn't as much demand for.

Thank you in advance for your input.