What do you use to design Flash MX Graphics/Layouts?

I am new to flash and I want to start off on the right foot. Can you please tell me what you use to design flash mx layouts/graphics, thanks!

I'm not very good with Flash yet, but I use Photoshop a LOT for creating buttons, backgrounds, illistrations, and almost every thing graphic. Illistrator and Freehand have some things that are highly usefull in Flash, but I think I could probalbly do them almost as well in Photoshop ..

IMO
Justin

ya i am an advanced photoshop user that is wanting to make the converstion from making static html sites to media rich flash sites, i just don;t want to keep designing in photoshop if there is a better way.

there are so many vector graphics tools out there that i'm a bit overwhelmed at which tool to use to design my flash layouts. i have heard that freehand allows for easy trasition into flash, but everyone i know seems to use illustrator for everything.

thanks for the imput, any others?

Yes, Photoshop and Flash make a good combo of products, but it also puts a good combo on the wallet. It might be best for like the first two months to stick with making graphics and color mixing with flash so you can get really good at it. Then maybe later when you can afford it buy Photoshop, or atleast cheap little students like me cant buy both at once : ( lol

well i got to art school and we have these things accessable, so the money isn't an issue, i'm just wondering what software i should concentrate on for my flash design because it's at school fo rme to use when i want, i jut don't want to learn on the wrong media ya know.

thanks for the hel guys, i really want to make the transition to flash and start designing rad sites in it, i just want to make sure i'm developing with the right tools.

freehand or illustrator. they both work pretty much the same. if you know one you can use the other with a little digging around. freehand and flash are made by the same company so compatiblity is better. but thats just getting the elements into flash. you can do it with illustrator as well by exporting your file to an swf file that you can import into flash. i like illustrator. i think its an app that is well taken care of. a lot of people use it. however i know a few that only use freehand. but either way, whatever you choose isnt going to hinder your development with flash. they both work fine.