[daacon]

Has anyone used Adobe Photoshop CS3 and care to comment? I recently purchased Photo Suite CS2 (Educational Discount only way to go) and was wondering the upgrade ($199.00) is worth it seeing how I know very little about CS2 yet (I have used Paint Shop Pro so some familiarity with Photo editing)

The other new product is Adobe Lightroom. The price on that is the same as the upgrade to CS3 and there are some fans of Lightroom on this form anyway.

I suppose the right thing to do would be to learn CS2 then decide - but I hear CS3is easier to learn and maybe abandon both and go for Lightroom ? I think CS2 is huge overkill for what I need – I got such a good price on it is the basic reason I went with it.

Any opinions?

[roentarre]

I just got my CS3 extended version (costing an arm and leg though).

It is definitely a lot faster to process, retrieve and edit the photos, complimenting well with my new laptop. Function wise, I found little difference though. The Displace filter function is more clever and sophisticated. Some of the subtle changes are made in which I have to discover these things individually.

Only 500 mega bytes altogether so it does not take up much space either.

For me, the real bonus in CS3 is faster photo processing speed.

[Photo Tramp]

I also have the new CS3 and I can honestly say if I had to pay for it I would never have bought it. It is only marginally faster in processing and I don't like the bridge in CS3. The price for the upgrade and in fact for the whole suite is outrageous There are only 12 new modifications to the program and none that I would be using. Those changes were geared more for video then Photography. I have since gone back to CS2 and have returned my copy of CS3 back to our shop.

[slip]

If I had the money I would get it for several reasons
Bridge is supposed to be a lot faster (I can't even use Bridge in CS2 as it is way to slow for my older computer)
Camera raw has better features
filters are non-distructive (ever apply a filter and didn't like it's effect later on, now you can go back and change it)
the new selection features looks like they would be effective
I would like to get it as part of the CS3 due to this feature:
when I build a website with Adobe Dreamweaver, I can directly import images from photoshop CS3. this feature alone would save me hours on a big project!
editing and optimising photos in CS2 to put in dreamweaver is a pain in the butt to say the least.
The new flash looks cool, too!

I would also buy the CS3 education full version.... at $499 for creative suite web premium (Photoshop extended, illustrator, flash professional, dreamweaver, fireworks, contribute, etc) it is cheaper then photoshop alone.

cheers

randy

[dhodgeh]

I just got CS3 (upgraded from CS).

Mainly because I feel this may be the last release before dropping XP as a supported platform.

Hopefully, by that time, the photography tools under Linux will be in a better state than they are now.

[roscot]

If I had the money I would get it for several reasons
Bridge is supposed to be a lot faster (I can't even use Bridge in CS2 as it is way to slow for my older computer)
Camera raw has better features
filters are non-distructive (ever apply a filter and didn't like it's effect later on, now you can go back and change it)
the new selection features looks like they would be effective
I would like to get it as part of the CS3 due to this feature:
when I build a website with Adobe Dreamweaver, I can directly import images from photoshop CS3. this feature alone would save me hours on a big project!
editing and optimising photos in CS2 to put in dreamweaver is a pain in the butt to say the least.
The new flash looks cool, too!

I would also buy the CS3 education full version.... at $499 for creative suite web premium (Photoshop extended, illustrator, flash professional, dreamweaver, fireworks, contribute, etc) it is cheaper then photoshop alone.

cheers

randy

I've been beta testing CS3 for a couple of months. I can not use Bridge 3 on a P4 2.8 with 1GB ram. I run out of ram with it. Bridge 2 leaves me with about 200GB of head room. That being said, I really love ACR 4 a lot. To me, that is worth the price of the upgrade + another gig of Ram.

[daacon]

Thanks I think at a minimum I look at the $$ of upgrade and see how much it bites into the LBA fund

[gpaual]

i am currently running cs2, cs3, and LR; personally i like 3's bridge a bit more than 2's, but it was all alearning curve anyway. after a few days i decided that if one is running cs2 w/LR, then they just about have cs3, excepting a few minor elements........its all good!

[volosong]

Just discovered today that my CS3 beta has expired. Need to decide if to pay for CS3 now. I like bridge in CS2 a lot better than CS3. There are some things I like in CS3, but have to justify the cost. Best thing about Adobe Photoshop is that you can upgrade from any version for the same price. Or, at least back to v.6 or so.

[Photo Tramp]

As I said below I had tested the CS3 beta and also had gotten a copy of CS3 extended. to play with. Here's what happened. I installed CS3 Beta and also CS2 ( I had problems with bridge not running when I tested Beta and CS2 was still installed) The install of the CS3 extended went well and easy. After registering the copy with Adobe and having the program in the computer for about an hour, I closed out and left it for about 10min. I came back and reopened it and there was no bridge. couldn't get bridge to run even just accessing bridge directly. I reinstalled the program and it worked fine. closed out and went back in after about 2 min. and no bridge again. Re installed again. got error message Mvr.dll missing. installed this program again and once again reinstalled it. Worked fine in fact all night it worked with no problems I was in and out of the program about 6 times, No problems. Monday morning about 4 am opened the program up with no problems and everything worked well. came home from work Monday afternoon Error msg mvr.dll missing or corrupt. I installed it and have since gone back to CS2 and I think until Adobe gets the bugs work out of CS3 I will wait for a new copy. Besides I like CS2 bridge better.

[Buddha Jones]

I just got the order put in for CS3 Web Premium, I didnt bother testing it out, the integration between Dreamweaver and Photoshop is enough to make me have it. I have been waiting for this since the two companies merged.