I recommend you check out the "Cartographer's Guild":http://www.cartographersguild.com/
They have a lot of forums and recommendations for mapping resources (both free and paid.)
Being the cheap-skate that I am, I have been using a mix of "Gimp":http://www.gimp.org/, "RPTools _MapTool _":http://rptools.net/ and Macromedia Fireworks. The first two of the above programs are totally free!
If you decide to go with either of those, I should note that MapTool works better for small battle maps and Gimp works well for regional/world maps.
You might also want to check out "AutoRealm":http://autorealm.sourceforge.net/. This is also free, and quite functional, but the results are not as polished as if you used an actual graphics program.
Comments
They have a lot of forums and recommendations for mapping resources (both free and paid.)
Being the cheap-skate that I am, I have been using a mix of "Gimp":http://www.gimp.org/, "RPTools _MapTool _":http://rptools.net/ and Macromedia Fireworks. The first two of the above programs are totally free!
If you decide to go with either of those, I should note that MapTool works better for small battle maps and Gimp works well for regional/world maps.
You might also want to check out "AutoRealm":http://autorealm.sourceforge.net/. This is also free, and quite functional, but the results are not as polished as if you used an actual graphics program.