Now don't get me wrong, I like PhotoShop, and I make part of my living teaching it, but has anyone else gotten the idea that some of the changes in the new versions (I'm actually talking about 5, I haven't installed 5.5 yet) are retrograde? That in the endless "We have to come up with something new, so we can sell an update" battle they are making ill informed choices? Two cases in point- I've been using paths a lot lately, and they used to work better when the tools were in the path pallette, not in the toolbox, they you could just click on a tool, not open the tool in the toolbox and then click on a tool. And version 4 used to open files as big as would fix on your screen, now they are back to the nearest even size again- this is an improvement? I have to use the newest version because that is what I teach, but I don't know about some of the changes they are making.

I know what you mean, I just went from 4 to 5 and some of the new "improvments" get on my nerves a little (then again I felt the same way from 3 to 4 :) My biggest peeves at the moment is the transform command was moved, and the text layers, however the mutilple undo's are a godsend. I guess we take the good with the bad. -Trav

I do like the multiple undo's!! For that reason alone I find Photoshop 5 and up a refreshing program!! You will always get some drawbacks whenever things are changed with a new version, but you must look at the positive changes as well. I have worked with Corel and Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro and I find Photoshop to be my second hand on the Computer now!! Corel is much too segragated and confusing and not at all user friendly, and Paint Shop Pro is considered a smaller version of Photoshop or a poor man's Photoshop. The thing I also like so much is how Adobe manages to interconnect all their software, for example, I have Adobe Imagestyler and Illustrator and they work so well together!! When i consider the possibilities and choices I have to work with, I will choose Photoshop over the rest any time!! 3DSprite

I use both Photoshop 4 and Paint Shop pro 6 and both are useful for different things. What worries me is that if the rumours are true and Adobe are a potential buyer of Poser, Bryce and Painter (3d as well) how will the next releases fare. If, as Jim Burton suggests, that Adobe, in order to keep the "hype" going, have succumbed to market trends releasing new versions that should realy only be considered upgrades or additional feature releases (my interpretation of some of what he is saying), how would Metacreation's producs fare under their control? Would the trend of buggy, half-finished "we will fix it later" releases be continued as the norm? Perhaps it is time that the user or customer power - that is a growing element in software development and quality (largely as a result of web forums such as this) - is brought to bear on suppliers and developers. I don't think that any of us have yet realised the power and influnce that user forums such as this can bring to bear on product suppliers. Perhaps it is time we did! Perhaps it is time that we the users make the suppliers more accountable to us the people that spend the money and keep these companies afloat and use our democratic and financial muscle in this. All it requires are are a few e-mails and posts between the various graphic forums on the web. Has anyone yet realised the potential for all of us in this? Just a few thoughts for the Millennium. STORM

Adobe's stuff is pretty solid, anyway, that is to say it doesn't crash very much. I also find Bryce 4 pretty solid, Poser 4 fairly buggy and RDS 5 increadably buggy (what, me buy Carrara after this?). I guess all in all, Adobe picking up Metacreations products would be an improvement. Getting back to Photoshop, as much as I like it, I find it sort of unbelivable that when I'm working woth paths over a B & W texture map template I have to put a partly transparent white layer in so I can see the paths- I used to use a paint program 10 years ago (ColoRix) that was smart enough to always change the color of the cursor so you could see it against the background, why doesn't Photoshop do that?

I use photoshop constantly... and each time they changed it (3 to 4, 4 to 5) I never liked the new layout and interfaces... but after I adjusted to each, I never would want to go back.. like always paste to a new layer.. at first I hated it.. but I've gotta say that my fav part of photoshop is the layer effects... my least favorite part would be the programs new-found inability to create italic and bold states for fonts that don't have them.

I have trouble imagining how I actually got along with PS 2.5 for so long. Now, when an upgrade comes out, I jump on it. Everything I have asked for, they have delivered. It does bother me when the move things around or change the keyboard shorts (bright&contrast 2.5-3.0, where did it go?). Overall, I am more amazed than annoyed. I just ordered the WOW book for 5.5. I highly recommend this series. If there's anything relevent to Poser post-production, I'll try to post it.

they took away the shortcut to discourage people from using it... it's all about LEVELS these days..

Tell me about it. I work for a Newspaper with letterpress presses that are about 60 years old. The only way to get quality printing of photos is intense color/greylevel correction. I get along fine with Curves & B&C, but there's a lot of pressure to use the Levels. Oh, the memos I have read. BTW. How does everyone like Imageready? I've found it to be a valuable resource in my web spinning.