i’ve used 6 and 7
how’s cs?
Rei will come in and spew his 5.5 propoganda but 7 is all you need.
5.5 and 7 are the only good ones.
I like CS the best, myself. But TigerGenocide is right, all you really need is 7.
thing is… i could have gotten 5.5, 7, or CS for $50 from this store who’s going out of bizz, and the manager knows me, and i’ve given him alot of bizz myself… so he offered me a nice deal… i’ve been using 6
thanks
5.5 is all you need.
hahaa
and nice what u did to the poll
I like 5.5 for the same reason that I’m still using Winamp 2.91.
Speed.
Nothing has been added since 5.5 that I can’t live without. I can, however, enjoy the blazing fast speeds that the newer, bloated versions of photoshop don’t have.
5.5 is looking sexy right about now.
Hummm… seems my vote doesnt matter since someone here cheats… but hey… 7… 
I love my retouch tools.
ps 7 works great. i haven’t seen what cs can do though. i don’t know much about it.
PS7 is the best and thats the fact. CS sux and so do all the other older versions.
5.5 is the PS for champions. I should know, since I’m PS. 
I use LviewPro XD
I must disagree with the people who say 5.5 is all you need. The brush tool options present in 7 seem awfully nice (my memory of 5.5 is really blurry…only used it in a lab a couple times). Those sys requirements are pretty whack too.
I haven’t used CS, but I’ve no urge to upgrade. I don’t remember if 5.5 had integration with imageready or not. If you like to whore out the animation, its a nice touch in the later versions.
Brush tool is underrated methinks.
Wow, more voters than views huh?
Anyway I’ve been forced to use 5.5 in my computer graphics design class, and I still prefer 7.0. Although I have tried CS, it’s not much better than 7.0
Okay, so I’ve got a few moments, so I will share a few things about this whole issue that people can discuss.
At work, we have started using the Adobe Creative Suite Premium Pagemaker edition. This includes Photoshop CS. I have to say that I like the creative suite. However, Photoshop CS as a stand alone product is not, in my opinion, better than 5.5.
Here is what I don’t like about Photoshop CS.
-Vector Tools. I like a nice, elegant tool that does one job well, rather than the jack of all trade/master of none approach.
-Activation. Here at work, we use norton ghost to re-image all of our hard-drives every 3 months. Or, if a computer gets a virus, or has a problem, they get re-imaged with a “clean” version. With the activation, this creates down-time. We can’t just re-image a computer and have it up and running again. We have to re-image a computer, call adobe operators, explain that we activated photoshop on a now formatted hard-drive, etc… I don’t need that kind of drama. I want software that I can install, and use with as little down-time as possible.
-System Requirements. This is a bloated piece of software. Again, a Jack-of-all-trades, master of none. If all I need to do is open an image, adjust the color balance, and resave so that I can re-link it in Quark, then I can get this done in PS 5.5 before PS CS is even done loading. Not that big of a deal when you don’t have deadlines, but some of us are under pretty tight time constraints.
Here is what I do like about Photoshop CS.
-5.5 Compatibility Mode. Edit --> Color Settings --> Photoshop 5 Default Spaces. This way, my CMYK files that were created in 5.5 look like they should. (Also, return of the ditherbox.)
-Scripting. Let’s be honest here, Gimp was killing Photoshop when it came to automated image generation and automated editing. Gimp’s ScriptFu could do things like take a text list and generate multiple images using the list based on template or parameters that you set in your ScriptFu. You could even use ScriptFu to call gimp from other programs. For a while there, Photoshop had “Actions” but they were more like macros than a full blown programming language like Gimp has. Now, there is Photoshop CS Scripting. Using AppleScript, VB or JavaScript, PS CS can now do things that Gimp/CinePaint have been able to do for years now. (Speaking of Gimp, verions 2.0 is out, go get it!)
-Version Cue. Collaboration is difficult. This makes it easier.
-RAW support. Straight from the camera into Photoshop. I no longer have to use the clunky software that came with whatever camera happened to be used.
-Creative Suite integration. Face it, the suite is the reason to get CS. If you don’t have the suite, you will most likely be better off with Photoshop Elements 2.0.
Now, where I work, it ussually goes like this: Camera --> Scanner/Import Software --> Spreadsheets --> Gimp --> Photoshop --> Illustrator/Corel Draw (Sometimes) --> Pagemaker/Quark (Datamerge) --> Distiller --> Printing Press.
Yet, with creative suite, the process is now: Camera --> Scanner (If needed, or just import RAW, and skip this step) --> Spreadsheets --> Photoshop --> Illustrator --> Corel Draw (If it needs to go to an engraver) --> InDesign (Datamerge, then export PDF directly) --> Printing Press.
Because of Version Cue, and because there are less tools needed in the process of creating a finished printable project, we are saving hours of time using the Creative Suite workflow rather than using several different programs.
Of course, this begs the question, how many people are designing catalogs, brochures, trading cards, etc? If you aren’t doing this kind of work, you are better off using PS5.5/Elements 2.0. In fact, there are many times when 5.5 is better than CS, just because it has all the tools that you need, and none of the stupid bells and whistles that end up slowing things down.
So, my opinion is, if you aren’t getting paid to use Photoshop, you are better off using PS5.5/Elements 2.0 or Gimp.