The advantage to this is that it makes the image resizable without distortion. It is real easy for the program to change the size of the image without getting all the horrible jaggies that you get when you resize a bitmap image. When you use a scanner to scan in an image, you will end up with a bitmap image. PhotoShop, Corel PhotoPaint, JASC Paint Shop Pro, along with most inexpensive photo-type editing programs, are bitmap editors. You can get a lot of milage out of Paint Shop Pro. Forgot to mention that the above advice also applies if you plan on doing any non-web artwork, like designing an invitation for your child's birthday party, or preparing an advertisement to run in Time magazine.
Same principles apply, regardless.
Same principles do apply, but there are special considerations if you plan on having your artwork printed commercially. Best advice, is that you should have a talk with your printer before you do a lot of work. Sources Adobe . PhotoShop Corel . Corel Draw Suite JASC .