I have a newer MacBook Pro with CS3 installed. Is it worth considering an upgrade to either CS4 or 5? Does anyone have experience with either of these versions and whether they improve speed or have extremely helpful new features?
Thank for any pointers.
Depends on how badly you’d like to trend-whore. In all things non-serious: it depends on what you’re looking to do. CS 3 is one of the most stable versions out of the 3, but still.
I use Photoshop CS4 on mac and CS2 on PC. Has somethings here and there but the basic functionality is the same. 4 does have cool new 3D type stuff where you can wrap an object with a skin.
If money is no object wait until CS5. We use DW CS5 and I like what I see. BrowserLab is built in which is kinda cool. haven’t had time to really dive in yet.
But Photoshop is the one to wait for. The new healing brush feature is suppose to be sick.
Depends…how often and how in-depth do you work with the applications in the CS suite?
On the PC, I was using Photoshop 7 up until recently upgrading to CS4. I’m not a super power user, but I didn’t notice a dramatic difference in features and usability. If you’re just learning, I’d bet that CS3 will be very useful to you for some time to come.
If you’re just starting out, CS3 is current enough to learn on. Might as well save the cash until you know you’re ready for or need the new features that newer versions bring to the table.
…unless of course you get a wildly generous student discount or some such thing that’s too good to pass up.
That would be pertinent information. 
I am fairly new to the CS suite, so the use is not that extensive, but plan on ramping it up in the coming months. Trying to forecast if the upgrade would be needed now or in the near future.