Adobe Photoshop CS4, coming soon!
 

Adobe are releasing version 4 of their acclaimed photo editting suite.

http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/

Looks like there are some new features.

I have barely scratched the surface of CS2, and haven't yet found anything I can't do with it. It seems to me that CS3 hasn't been out that long and product lifecycles are getting ever shorter. Do I feel any need to upgrade to a later version? No. Are the public getting ever more pressurised to feel that they have to get the latest? Yes.

These premium software packages are not at all cheap, I'll get the maximum value I can out of what I've got. The only benefit I see is that CS3 will drop in price to something fare more sensible. BTW, you can get CS2 at a very reasonable price now if you look hard enough.

Duncan

Yessss CS4 is here.

I agree and disagree with Duncan.

Yes Photoshop is one of the most powerful photoediting softwares, if not The most, ever made and each version even PS6 or PS7 are still quit capable of rendering a tremendous job, but to judge if New version is any better or not, it all depends on what you expect from PS and what you do with it. If all you want is resizing for web, well the PCs basic build in "Paint" does the job for free. Also for some one who is just to do little Brightness, contrast sharpness, filter effect, Picasa is free to use from Google with excellent given capability to process images for slide show, sending as email in form of a large batch of images all auto resized or send them to your local photo dealer shop for print, to be picked up or send back by mail.
But when you really need all the power to create a picture for Billboard, a full fledged commercial work, there is only on language with which top notched photographers talk; Adobe Photoshop!

CS3 had a lot of and I mean it, a lot of improvements over CS2. Better and much easier selection of part of image with magic wade "Quick selection tool" that suddenly has become a lot smarter in choosing the right pixels you have in mind, Black and White selective color filter capability, HDR features, etc etc etc.

I never forget Photoshop Guru's word, "Stuart Little", that even for him who is teaching photoshop for about 2 decades, still photoshop has new features he never knew.

In my opinion "If there is something that photoshop can't do, it is the thing that user is not yet learned or discovered!!!".

Yes price is high but look at limited sale they make for the tremendous job the team behind the photoshop are producing daily to keep it the top photo editing software. They have to pay their bills too. And yes with any new version, it is definitely good to get the advantage of getting one or two generation earlier versions that come with a much lower price tag.

Presumably, Adobe themselves keep finding things that Photoshop can't do, otherwise they wouldn't need to keep updating it:)

They've added more to the Raw converter so I suppose this means they won't support older versions with updates as new camera models come out (though the option of converting them to DNG should still be available)

You are right Andy.
The problem with RAW is, as you say, with every new camera model, a new beast is born. I wish the camera manufacturers could figure out a uniform standard for RAW instead of personalizing it to every model of even same camera brand. I remember that older DSLRs were had RAW (Some the only format available) in TIFF format. Of course that is not comparable to the modern RAWs.
I think it would be fair and right to add the needed plug in for major softwares such as PS when camera manufacturers make a new model, instead of suppling a very limited handicapped software of their own. At least they can make their own software compatible as a Plug In in the PS or like wise.