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For what it's worth I'm only so so about PS CS3. I should have stayed back at PS7 because as far as working with my images goes PS7 was just as capable and a lot faster. The Adobe products are just getting too fat and heavy for me but then again, I have a very simplistic work flow:)
I got a student version of PSE7 at SAIT for about $40 below cost. :)
I know they also sell CS too but that's way too much for what I need...I find PSE is even a bit too much too at times. I like Lightroom...seems to have more features i use.
I got PSE7 bundled along with Premiere Elements for $99 (for both) with my Dell computer and I'm really liking it. And this is after using CS3 for quite some time. Premiere, on the other hand, is taking some time to get used to. I don't do much video editing but in the past I had been using Sony Vegas and was finding it quite easy to work with.
When it came to Lightroom, I used my 6 year old son's educational status to buy from academicsuperstore.ca and I think it was around $129 if I remember correctly. I've read that I can't get any discounts on future upgrades with the educational version, and Lightroom 3 is already out in beta. But I haven't seen anything in the bit of research I've done on the new version to make me want it yet.
As a general observation about editing software with version to next updates it seems that new features are added but at the cost of becoming more bloated. So it has to be dynamite improvements for me to want to upgrade as I like my processing to be as snappy as possible without having to upgrade my hardware every other year.
I think Vegas blows premiere clean out of the park. I started with Premiere, switched to Vegas and never looked back. It was weird at first because of the different workflow. Crossfades are very easy along with audio level control. Far better tool Vegas be!!
I have to agree with you but I was afraid to come to any conclusions about premier elements just yet since I really haven't given it much of a fair shake and was willing to write off the frustration I felt during my 1st editing session as learning curve.
Vegas was one of those "extended demo" installs for me .... errr ... cough ..... ahem .... well the darned demos or trials are never long enough or are so crippled it's not enough to properly assess it and most software is forced out to the market with bugs galore and no refunds so I don't feel so bad taking adequate time to assess the product even if it is a little warezy.
But I don't do enough video editing anymore to warrant any further purchases (and I spend too much on my photography stuff) so I'm going to have to plod along with Premiere or, more likely, use Windows Movie Maker when I don't need to do anything too big or complicated.