Cs2/cs3

I have CS2 loaded in my macbook pro. I have an opportunity to purchase CS3 at a student rate for a limited time- about 2 weeks. Those of you who are familiar with CS3, would you recommend that I do this? Why/Whynot?

I appreciate your expertise and experience to help with my decision!!

I would be buying cs4 if I were you.

As I always say: the newest, the better.
I don't understand why so many people always complain whenever a new version is launched. There are differences, of course, and if you are an expert you could probably loose some beloved tool or function, but the new potentiality are always astonishing. Cs3 is definitely better than Cs2. Not to mention Cs4.
I am not an expert, so don't take my words for granted, but I have always been pleasantly surprised anytime I have upgraded

CS3 is pretty much the standard now. CS4 is the newest, but I still have my CS3 suite and I do use it more often than CS4.

I only like Illustrator and Bridge in CS4. I haven't touched Photoshop or Dreamweaver yet. Flash in CS3 is complicated enough for me, and then they start messing with the format of things and moved things around so it's like relearning a program.

I would just stick with CS3 for now. You aren't missing much by not having CS4.

I would suggest CS4 otherwise when they release CS5 (whenever that maybe) you could be 2 version's behind, if you catch my drift, the only problem is that in AUS i dont know about anywhere in in the world,

but you cant upgrade with the student version, i would suggest the educational version, it is a bit more expensive but you get to upgrade which is always good )

Wasn't CS3 optimized for UB or something similar? That would be the biggest reason to upgrade. Other than that, there were not a lot of difference between the two. CS3 has an HDR tool built in and there's several other upgrades.

CS4 uses the computer's GPU for some functions, alleviating the strain on the CPU and memory which also allows for real time viewing of certain effects like upsizing, rotation, etc... It also allows for sizings other than 25%, 50%, 75%, and the like to be viewed without the pixelation that occurs in 2 & 3. That was one of my major annoyances. Sometimes I just didn't want to picture blown up on my screen that large to edit a certain section and now working with 21mp photography files, that's even more important.