I agree that PhotoShop has become a lot more complicated (I started out on version 3.0.1), but for me I much prefer 5.5 to all of the previous versions. The history brush is actually the "erase to saved" now and if used correctly is every bit as good (I am assuming one takes "snapshots" at appropriate junctures and saves some of them if anything is really in doubt). Before color profiles came along in version 5.0, it was nothing to print something 3 - 5 times before I got the colors to match up to what was on the screen(NEC multi-sync monitor and Epson 6 color printer). Now the colors are right on, and only the brightness is a little off, so I sometimes have to print it twice. V5.5 even asked me if I wanted to use the color profile from 5.0 or start over! The new masking tools are nothing short of fabulous compared to what used to be available (yes, you could do some of what they do with the select color function, but by no means all of it and not nearly as easily). The background eraser (one of the new masking tools) even manages to preserve some of the transparency of the original -- very good for hair). They fall down a little when the background and foreground colors become substantially the same, but there are ways around that and one can always touch up with the history brush. I have a thread further back with the url for Deke McClellands' web site (he wrote most of the good books for PhotoShop) and there you can access a PDF file showing the new improvements for V5.5). Yes, nothing is perfect in this World, and an artist as good as Jim Burton is can make do with a lot less frills than I can, but my own opinion is that Version 5.5 is worth having. -Jim