It's not the camera that makes good pictures, it's the eye behind, we all know that, but a pro or semi-pro camera (DSLR) with good lenses makes it a lot easier to take perfect pictures thats a fact, too.

But what does one do without the money to by all that fancy gear?

Very simple - get to know the limits of your camera and/or flatbed scanner, experiment and try over and over - again and again ... Pick your best shots, buy a reasonable pen tablet as it is almost essential for manual retouching and for drawing illustrations as well, and much easier to use for little details than the mouse.

I've been running into a lot of limitations with my little, but handy pocket cam (Olympus,C-50,zoom), but with the right lightning, a good portion of patience ...