LINC: How to create figures

Here are some tips on creating figures: (add to it!)

Adobe Illustrator makes real nice figures, but you will probably need to have some desktop publishing experience to figure out all the tools. It's a clean interface and very powerful. It will save natively as EPS. It's available as part of the Adobe Create Suite (~$190 for students) or alone (~$95). The Creative Suite will give you Photoshop (~$180 by itself) and Freehand and Dreamweaver, among others.
dia. Brian recommended this. It's a Linux tool and is free. (anyone?)
Xfig for X-Windows. Another one I heard about. (anyone?)