What tools do you use to create iPhone/iPad graphics

What tools do you use to create up-to-date shaded and 3D graphics for the iPhone? I have a nice app at the app stor开发者_高级运维e, but it is "graphically challenged" so it doesn't sell well. iPad apps, in particular, really need nice borders, headings and surrounds.

Would upgrading my 2003 version of Photoshop help me in this area?

Opacity is a great tool that creates vector graphics (perfect for different screen resolutions) and can even export your design to CoreGraphics code. A trial version and a cheaper express version with a limited feature set is available.

I use Photoshop (and Silo for anything 3D, though this isn't too important for most of what I do) for all of my work. As far as version goes, I don't think it'll affect the quality of your work too much, if at all - I can do the same work in Photoshop 5.5 that I can in CS 5, so the issue comes down to knowing what you're doing.

What is your app? What is it for? Are you using the screen space well? Does the UI look good, is it obvious what everything does? The thing is, you might be better off finding a designer or someone to consult for this stuff.

I use Inkscape. It's a nice vector image maker similar to Adobe Illustrator but completely free and open-source. It's a bit hard to use but it's very powerful and there are lots of good tutorials online for it.