I've only just recently upgraded to CS3. (And that's because my office just bought new computers that were a different platform than the computers that had CS2) So far, in Photoshop, I've noticed that the "feather" option in has been expanded to have many new options. It's called Refine Edge and you get a whole dialog box now with sliders that gives you many options to choose from (radius, contrast, smooth, feather and contract/expand). The photomerge tool is cool and a big time saver when making panoramas, the vanishing point feature has been upgraded with the addition of adjustable angles. (The example they show in the tutorial is of an open cd and then you can wrap the entire cd layout on it.) It’s pretty cool. I’m not that well versed in Illy and InDesign, so I haven’t come across any changes yet. But the CS3 suite now comes with Dreamweaver and Flash. Something that Macromedia used to put out separately, now Adobe owns them so it is a package deal.

CHECK ADOBE for upgrade info. There are six different versions of the Creative suite, and they each contain different combinations of software.

I am not a fan of upgrading just because the upgrade is available. The only reason to move from CS2 to CS3 is if you are on an Intel chip machine. CS3 supposedly runs better. I'm not convinced of that reason either. There are a few new bells and whistles in CS3 if you go the Pro version but, and I can't stress this enough, is it worth paying out another $800+ to get them? Getting CS3 over CS2 will not make you a better designer nor will it save you time, especially if your comp can't handle the ram-pigginess of it.

If you've got an Intel Mac, CS3 will run better than CS2. It's native code. Otherwise, it really depens on what you do whether it's worth it or not. I suspect I could get my moneys worth (or rather the company I work for's money's worth) out of Indesign table styles alone. But I doubt many people could say that...

mmm, yummy table styles. Yeah, that does it for me too.

if you have an Intel mac, I think CS3 is worth it because of the intel support. Also if you are a heavy Flash user, i think the flash and photoshop/illustrator integration is freakin awesome.

check out journeyed.com if youre in school. They are having a MAJOR adobe sale. I just bought Design premium for $309

I'd say this is one of the worthwhile major upgrades to get. CS2 didn't really add too much in my eyes, which is why I stuck with CS1. As others have said, the Intel reasoning as well as the good integration between the Macromedia and Adobe appss.