I've been using PhotoShop since version 2. Returning to Mac this year, with wizzy fast intel hardware, I found myself in a bit of a spot. I'd just purchased CS2 for Windows and spending another $1,200 to get CS2 for PPC Mac didn't really appeal. So, for the past few months, I've been limping along with CS2 under Parallels. Needless to say, when Adobe released this PS beta for Intel Macs, I was downloading it at 3 in the morning.
So, what do I think after a couple of days use? Well, so far I can't find anything major that's worse than CS2 and there are a handful of super nice improvements. The first improvement I noticed was the new Quick Selection tool and Refine Selection features. Wow. This makes things so much faster. It literally cuts maybe 90% of the time for most of my photograp selection tasks. The second thing that blew me away was the new non-destructive Filters. You have to experience it to believe it, but this is definitely the killer new feature in PS CS3. You no longer have to "apply" a filter to an image. You can simply add it like a layer, or even stack multiple filter effects. It's just brilliant.
I'm sure I'll have more to report when I've had longer to play with it, but so far I'm sold. I'll definitely be making this purchase as soon as CS3 ships.
