Maybe it's me, but Fireworks still rules when it comes to these things, IMHO. Now that I use Ubuntu I've tried Gimp and Inkscape, and some others, but I can not find all of the aforementioned qualities.

So I guess those are the main qualities I like a lot in Fireworks.

Ease of working with vectors and bitmaps at the same time.Ease of dragging, resizing, and moving objects (images, shapes, text) around on a canvas.Preview of JPG / GIF / PNG export, easy quality settings -> useful when exporting for the web.Easy options to apply textures, shadows, gradients, and other effects.Possibilities to draw other objects easily (squares, lines, circles, shapes).Good tools for moderate image manipulation (cutting, cropping, color changes, overlaying one image with another, blurring, etc.).I have had Fireworks for years and it suits my purpose. The latest update to Adobe Fireworks CS6 includes Mac 10.8 platform compatibility, performance and stability improvements.

Color picking in Fireworks is tuned for Web designers, defaulting to the Web-safe palette.I often have to make designs for internet-use. Fireworks provides a built-in 'Image Map layer' to facilitate assignment of URL links, as well as a button generation feature which automatically produces up, down, rollover, and hit states for button graphics, along with the JavaScript code to control the button behavior.

Other Web-focused Fireworks features include the ability to 'slice' an image for faster downloading, then export the component graphics plus the HTML table to re-assemble them in the viewers browser. The program lets you work with basic designs, complex 3D artwork. Fireworks allows designers to create the most compact graphics and GIF animations in the fewest steps. Adobe Photoshop CC is a powerful, reliable, and advanced image editor for Windows PCs. Engineered from the ground up to address the needs of professional Web designers, the new tool incorporates such advanced features as a visual export preview, complete control over compression and color palettes, automatic generation of button states and JavaScript rollovers, as well as text and effects which are editable all the time. The first production tool to provide a unified environment for creating, optimizing and producing high-quality graphics for the Web.

Download Macromedia Fireworks