Intro:
“It?s hard to believe, but Photoshop is nearly 20 years old. The original Apple Macintosh version was written in 1988 by brothers Thomas and John Knoll. The first full version published by Adobe appeared on the Macintosh in 1990. The entire program came on a single 1.44MB floppy disk.

Photoshop has grown and changed over the years, but has always incorporated the latest developments, reinforcing its position as the industry standard for professional image editing. The first Windows version (v2.5) appeared in 1992, layers were introduced in version 3.0 in 1994, multiple undo history in version 5.0 in 1998, and camera RAW support was added with version 7.0 in 2002. The concept of Creative Suite, incorporating and harmonising a whole range of Adobe?s other programs, including ImageReady, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, Encore and AfterEffects, was introduced in 2003 along with Photoshop 8.0, known as Photoshop CS. An update, unsurprisingly called Photoshop CS2, came along less than two years later in April 2005, adding many new features such as Smart Objects, a red-eye tool and the invaluable Spot Healing brush.”

Source: Adobe Photoshop CS3 - TrustedReviews

Photoshop CS3:
Version 10.0 improves many existing features, adds some surprising new ones, and also greatly improves the appearance of the user interface, something which has needed doing since version 7.0. Photoshop is launched along with the rest of the newly revamped Creative Suite 3, but is of course available as a stand-alone program.
I’m use every week Photoshop (not CS3) and I must say I love it. It’s the best photography software I have ever seen.

Movie about features: Adobe - Adobe Photoshop CS3: Features

But what about the price?
I can tell you, and you probably knew it, Photoshop isn’t realy cheap for people like you and me.
It’s around the 1 000 dollars.
But I can give you some hope. Here you can download the lastest version of photoshop for free, atleast for 30 days.
Link: https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop

Photoshop CS3 extended is better?
The differences between Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 extended are:

- 3D and motion support with the ability to edit 3D content and incorporate it into 2D compositions, paint and clone over multiple video frames, and more

- Comprehensive image analysis with new image measurement and counting tools, MATLAB integration, and DICOM file support

Conclusion
Like I told you before, it’s one the best programs for photography. The price is high, but if you choose for an older photoshop version, like Photoshop 8/CS, you can save a lot of money and don’t think Photoshop 8/CS or 9/CS2 are crap! Because they are NOT!

If you have questions about Photoshop or how to download the Trial version, please feel free to ask here.

Very handy and organized post. Thanks and it’ll help out people who are wondering about Photoshop. Do you have a website where you post your views/reviews? 😊

Not realy. I sometimes double post them at different forums but mostly a review is only on one website. Why? 😛

Also there is the upcoming version CS4 something codenamed stonehenge.And then there an online version also available now,go it goes from 1.4 mb to 0mb (sort of)

This year I started taking a High School photography course (I’m in 8th grade) at my school and here is how it went after the first class….

Me - “Mommy, can I get a digital SLR?”
Mom - “What the heck is a digital SLR?”
Me - “A good type of digital camera, usually with a detachable lens.”
Mom - “Aren’t those kind of cameras out of date?”
Me - “No mom, they are the really good cameras these days.”
Mom - “Oh, well if you can afford it, I guess.”
Me - “Oh and mommy, can I get Photoshop CS3?”
Mom - “What is CS3?”
Me - “It is the latest version of the advanced version of Photoshop, not Elements which is the one for beginners.
Mom - “You’ll have to ask for it for Christmas and see what Santa brings you.”

Anyway, Santa didn’t bring me Photoshop CS3 so I had to go out and buy it myself. But I learned a lot about if from podcasts so if you are interested in learning photoshop, search itunes for Photoshop and click podcasts.

Nice post. And nice history of it to. You can do all kinds of things in photoshop and I will look forward to all improvements that they will make. Thats one of things that I am excited over with winning the dragon there is photoshop that come with it.

Excellent review!  Photoshop CS3 is just simply an amazing piece of software.  I will admit, I am by no means an expert in it, but know enough to find my way around and know a few of the more advanced features, and the software has basically everything I could need.  I literally have not come across a situation where I can’t use Photoshop to solve the problem.  The only bad thing I suppose is the crazy high cost, but my college gives it out for free to its students, so I don’t have to worry about that!

Nice post Larrabee.thanks for sharing & yes PS4 is on the way.I’ve heard it will be coming with much more functionalities not found in CS3. 😊

I currently use CS3, got it from the http://www.journeyed.com student discount. I have to say, it’s pretty nice, i’m now addicted to it… i’m actually looking towards the release of CS4, with the hardware acceleration, the preformance boost from CS3 and older versions would be sweet.

@sushrukh, you’re bug avatar is so annoying…. i keep on thinking that there’s a fly on my computer screen.. *esc= disable all .gif in firefox

tsunzilla - 03 June 2008 03:18 AM

@sushrukh, you’re bug avatar is so annoying…. i keep on thinking that there’s a fly on my computer screen.. *esc= disable all .gif in firefox

That’s the reason why i put it there lol. 😛

And not to mention, it spun out a very cool tool for more serious photographers—Adobe Lightroom.

By the way, Lightroom is the isht for photographers. It makes processing and flow so much easier. I don’t even open up Photoshop anymore to process my photos.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/spthealien/2546911525/