i use 7.0 and Im ok with it, Ive heard that cs has ability to do flash slideshows. also with cs you may need to beef up your pc, possibly more ram and processor speed. to me i kinda like older programs because they seem to operate & load faster. i dont like the idea of bogging down my computer.

I agree that uselessly bogging down my machine is pointless. I'm wondering if anything has been added to Photoshop that would be especially useful and important for digital photography.

PS CS 2 (and soon 3) is truly an outstanding piece of software. I use a mac at work and couldn't live without the 'camera raw' plug-in to allow me to work directly with Native Nikon files.

Some other improvements over legacy versions:

the the over-all controls are improved and more intuitive

many more tools

much improved interface

better brush capabilities

hoards more filters, and not just glitzy ones

light, colour, contrast, levels etc... many more settings and variables.

quicker and more in depth action and droplet batching

better integration with Illustrator & InDesign

image ready is improved to (ships as standard).

I only have one gripe - it is a memory hog - you'll need some serious capability to run it. It slows to a crawl on my 512mb P4 at home if I work on an image over a couple of meg. In fact the whole CS suite is very bulky, especially as files start to grow.

Thanks limbo, that info is exactly what I am looking for. I appreciate you taking the time to pass it along!

CS2 features non destructive layers, so you can down-size a separate layer using the transform tool, then size it up to its original size without ANY loss in quality. This feature alone for me was worth it.

CS3 will also feature non destructive filters.

Non-destructive layers does sound tremendously valuable.

One of the tasks that I new face in digital photography is the need to substantially shrink an image and get a high quality result. The increase in the resolution of cameras has outpaced the increase in bandwidth and screen resolution, so more shrinking is needed now than before. I'm curious if any improvements related to shrinking of images have been made.

Thanks!

Lot's of little details make the difference for me. But you may have lagged too long already, I think you need 7 to upgrade to CS2.

I think that the upgrade boat sailed a long time ago for me. I'm running 6.0 on an old and slow Windows 98 box. My decision now is whether to stick with what I've got until it dies, build a faster Windows 98 machine, or buy a new computer and start fresh.

The funny thing is that what I've got works quite well for my needs, but I know that it won't last forever, so I need to plan a strategy.

My bit of advice - upgrade your PC and go straight to CS3. In any case, you can at least try it and find out if it is what you need.

If by upgrade my pc you mean buy a new one and new software, in order to try out the new software to see if it's what I need, then I say no thanks, I'm trying to avoid that by hearing from people, who've already gone that route, to see if it's worth the cost and time. Like I said, I have something now that works for me, I want to know if the new stuff is better enough to go through the pain, expense, and hassle of getting it and learning to use it.

From what I've heard so far, there are some nice new features, but not enough to justify any immediate action.

My decision now is whether to stick with what I've got until it dies, build a faster Windows 98 machine, or buy a new computer and start fresh.
The funny thing is that what I've got works quite well for my needs, but I know that it won't last forever, so I need to plan a strategy.

Oh, no - what I meant was definitely not to upgrade, so that you can try the new Photoshop available...
Obviously, I misunderstood what you'd said in the citation above and thought your strategy is equal to buying a new machine. Ok, I hope all misunderstanding is now in the past.

Have a nice day today.

Thanks for clearing that up!

:) No need to thank me at all!

I'm giving more thought to building a fast windows-98 pc just to keep my old copy of photoshop alive. I wonder if I can build one that won't need a fan for the chip or the power supply...but that's way OT for this threat...

thanks for the help