What software do designers feel comfortable working with?

I think it's Adobe Photoshop Elements. 

For Graphic purpose Adobe Package is the best and for the3d Graphics "3D Studio Max" and for motion same Adobe After Effect would be my choice.

It depends on the genres of the creatives graphic artist/designers comes in different genres of their art..unless they are multi skilled in so they used different softwares on different projects.. for me my base software is photoshop but not all the designs created using photoshop some illustrators, indesigns; for web designers they are using same tools too to create attrative webpage interface, but also their base software is dreamweaver, edge code, reflow or muse, same on3d designers they used software for3d's either cinema4d or3dmax.

depends on what type of designing. like for retouching photos and designing comic arts is photoshop. Indesign for layouts and digital publishing etc.