Beginner seeking recommendations for inexpensive software to start

[Sapiento]

Affinity Photo is very good, it does more or less everything Photoshop does. Affinity Designer is OK, but it does not support real vector brushes, which is a big downside for a vector software.

[Juan Swaz]

Thank you all for the information. I will look into these that you've mentioned.

Another related question (please excuse me, I don't know if it's best to follow up here or to make a separate post): I have several maps of the same area, all from different sources and with different features, which I would like to use to make a composite map that includes the features from each of them. My maps are in pdf form currently.

I have looked myself, and I have contacted certain state, federal, and private agencies, but none have identified any maps already made which include all of the characteristics I need, so I am on my own.

Are there any good programs (on the inexpensive side) that would allow me to construct a composite map from multiple files?

Thank you again to those of you who have replied.

Best regards,

Juan