Gee, I teach Photoshop, went to start the teacher's station for my Advanced class, and suprise suprise, PhotoShop 5.5 has been replaced by 6! Not all that impressed, seems like an awfull lot of changes for the sake of changes, some improvements, a bunch of backward steps. Haven't even seen a manual yet (school just buys Lab Packs, no manuals), is there any way to keep the Brush size window open, or can you pull it out of the rack or something? Otherwise you have to go click, click, click to do what used to take one click - this sucks! You still can't see the cursor on a 50% gray background either, gee, I wouldn't pay $800 for this if I was paying for it! Adobe has also revised their academic pricing for schools, upgrades now cost the same as original copies. I think they are getting Microsoft-itis! ;-)

You can still cycle through the brushes using the brackets key.And I can see my cursor.Maybe you need to calibrate your monitor. BUT, I think it blows that Adobe would release their upgrades so close to the release of OSX and now plan on charging for a upgrade just to make it compliant with OSX.Whereas others (like Symantec, Aladdin, and NewTek) are offering free fixes to make it OSX compliant.Example $79 for a PageMaker upgrade to OSX.$0 for a Lightwave compliant fix.

I like 6. It's not a huge improvement, but it does have some nice improvements once you get used to them. The text handling capabilities are especially good. The only thing that really bitched me out is that they didn't make it backwards compatible, so a lot of my actions from 5.5 no longer work right. Yes it takes a little while to get used to the new stuff, but once you do you see the improvements and changes are very very useful

Just wait until you try to create a custom gradient. Better have the handbook ready.

I haven't really had a problem with gradients, but, agreed, they're not very easy to use. But if you've worked with Photoshop enough years, you kind of learn how they think, so you can figure it out.

Hmmmm .... I have had Photoshop 5, 5.5 and now 6. I like the way it is set up now with the options bar at top. As for brush sizes, I use a stylus and graphics tablet so I have a range of brush sizes at various pressures. Gradients? Nothing to gradients if you know anything about them. I've used gradient editors in several different programs.

BTW, I forgot to mention that if you are using the paint brush/pencil tool or history brush tool you can access the brush size windows by right clicking on screen.