[bryanthompson]

I'm webmaster for one of the largest Agricultural Radio networks in the country, and I use Macromedia's programs all the time.

I use Dreamweaver MX for ColdFusion and Fireworks for images. If you like writing the code yourself it's perfect, but the second you start getting dynamic stuff going on it will totally butcher your code. either do it all by hand or do it all WYSIWYG. Otherwise you'll be frustrated out of your mind.

Fireworks isn't photoshop, but I think it's better. Everyone has their own opinions, but i think its easier to work with layers, slices, and effects than photoshop. Photoshop does seem to have some more intense effects & plugins, but there are a lot of good ones for Fireworks too. Flash got a ton of hype and became waaay overused. It's hard to think of an example of Flash being used in a real useful, classy way.

You can download trial versions of all Macromedia programs and see what you like and dislike.