Today is one of those days that designers celebrate and dread: Adobe unveils its latest Creative Suite—Number 4—with new pro versions of Photoshop, Premiere, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, After Effects and more. Heavy users wait with bated breath to see if their desired tweaks have been added, knowing that if the answer is "yes," then somebody's going to have to spend some dough fast—full versions run from $US1,700 to $US2,500 for the full Master Collection. If the answer is "no," it could be another year before the problems are solved.

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We generally try to avoid software talk, but the US flagged the new Elements release and the fact that it is a big bump in quality for the line means I'll give it its dues.

Hitting stores this week for Windows ('early 2008' for Mac), I had a recent briefing on the new Photoshop Elements and it is so good that 98% of users should probably not go anywhere near the full version ever again. Under the hood this is THE SAME engine as CS3, and it actually makes a lot of hardcore tasks easier than CS3. Basically, unless you need CMYK, you should be starting here first. Upgrade pricing to CS3 from Elements is now available, essentially covering the price of Elements so you can safely start here with no price disadvantage and then step up if necessary.

$159 for each standalone, or $235 bundled. A few more deets down below.

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As Adobe launches its latest Photoshop and Premiere Elements editions for Windows &mdash still $99 each or $149 as a combo &mdash there was plenty of talk why it chose Blu-ray over HD DVD, and about the return of a low-end product for the Mac OS aimed to challenge iLife at a moment of vulnerability.

A version of Photoshop Elements will ship for Mac OS in "early 2008," says senior product manager Mark Dahm, who said that instead of an iPhoto-like album organizer similar to the one in the Windows version, a Mac PSE would have something like the Bridge application that comes with full-fledged Photoshop CS3.

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