If im purchasing adobe photoshop for the 1st time should i get 5.0 or 6.0?

From the reviews im seeing 5.0 is better...what do you think. And should i order a book to help me understand it as ive never used photoshop before? Thanks :)

If im purchasing adobe photoshop for the 1st time should i get 5.0 or 6.0?firewall

If you want to explore the world of Adobe Photoshop without spending the big money for the full product, get Photoshop Elements. It is a tremendously powerful program and it only sells for $99.00. You can get it at http://www.adobe.com or any of the usual places you buy software. I am still using Photoshop Elements 5.0, but PE 6.0 is now out and Adobe claims that it has enhanced Brightness/Contrast tools, Clone tool and Black and White Conversion tool. The other enhancements seem to deal with merging photos (panoramic stitching) and organizing your photos.

You can use it practically right out of the box with the "Quick Fix" option and then you can advance into the full program, learning TONS about the Photoshop world as you go. Frankly, I think most casual users would never explore the full capabilities of Photoshop Elements. If you are ever ready for more, you will already know much of what you need to know about using "real" Photoshop.

Just go here http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshope... and click "Free Trial" for a 30-day free trial.

Almost every single image on my Flickr site was processed with Photoshop Elements 5.0. Some have from zero to barely any post-processing at all and others have considerable amount of perspective alterations, saturation changes, etc., and these are specified under the picture most of the time.