[sassan]

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.