6.0 & CS3

I was thinking I would wait and upgrade to CS3 but ended up screwing myself pretty good. I just got off the phone with Adobe; it turns out that you cant upgrade version 6.0 to CS3, not even the $549.00 upgrade, you have to buy the full version....Odd because even with 3.0 they knock a hundred bucks off.... starting to wonder if the only point of my life is to serve as a warning to others.

Anyway, does anyone know a place still selling the CS2 upgrade? The sites I'm finding are getting more for the CS2 upgrade than the full retail of CS3, and ebay just flat frightens me for software. Thanks.

Are you a student by chance? Educational versions of Adobe are very reasonable, but they will check your credentials.

My wife is starting back in the fall, so that will probably be plan b. Thanks.

You know, I think Adobe is under the impression that they are the only ones in the world who make a photo editor. Well they aren't. Back in the day there was a company called Ulead who made a photo editor that was at least as good as Photoshop was at the time, better, some even claimed. I lost track of them for a few years. That company went through some bumps and changes but still exists and makes and sells the product under the name PhotoImpact 12. This is a fantastic program. It will do nearly everything that Photoshop will do, and supports PS plug-ins too! I got a copy for about $30, $30!!, as an add-on when I recently bought Ulead's video editor Video Studio, which I bought because, Adobe no longer support W2K with their video editor Premiere (which I've always had issues with). Then Adobe dropped support for SSE1 processors in Premeire...the last straw....
Then there's Picture Window Pro (PWP). Another great program. Again available for a fraction of the cost of Photoshop. Ignored by many simply because "it's not photoshop" or "nobody ever got fired for buying Adobe". Well it isn't PhotoShop but again it does almost everything Photoshop does and some things that Photoshop doesn't do.
If you aren't using Photoshop in a commercial environment and don't need "big support" then I would recommend either of the two alternative editors as a great value. They support curves so are compatible with making digital negatives.

~m

Colin Graham said:

I was thinking I would wait and upgrade to CS3 but ended up screwing myself pretty good. I just got off the phone with Adobe; it turns out that you cant upgrade version 6.0 to CS3, not even the $549.00 upgrade, you have to buy the full version....Odd because even with 3.0 they knock a hundred bucks off.... starting to wonder if the only point of my life is to serve as a warning to others.

Anyway, does anyone know a place still selling the CS2 upgrade? The sites I'm finding are getting more for the CS2 upgrade than the full retail of CS3, and ebay just flat frightens me for software. Thanks.

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There are also some open source photo editors, too. I know the GIMP is one of them. If you googled open source photo editors, you would probably find some more alternatives.

Thanks very much for the suggestions. I hestitate to start into a new program though because of my profound sloth- I bought 6.0 new and only got around to using it last year. :rolleyes: How well does the 'intuitiveness' of PS translates into other photo editing software? Would I be better off with something like the Gimp over 6.0?

At one time circa 1995 on the PC Ulead (actually ulead was both the name of the product and the company if I recall correctly) was the best followed by picture publisher and trailed by photoshop. Adobe bought Ulead (the product not the company) and then basically pulled it off the market. The next version of photoshop had most everything that made Picture publisher better. The one thing PS had over the rest was a CMYK model that more or less worked well enough to get the image to a service bureau that could save your butt from there

Interesting. Michael, to what extent would either of these programs tie in with your treatise on the inkjet negative ?

I will tell you from experience... unless you need some of the new features of CS2 or the Intel-OSX fix of CS3 just go with Photoshop 7. CS2 is SUCH a resource hog, it is so incredibly slow on my laptop that one of these days I'm going to go back to PS7!

PS7 has all the ICC workflow that you need, and none of the resource bloat that CS2 has. Just my opinion on the constant Photoshop upgrades...

Also there are several other photo editing applications that also handle ICC profiles with easy ad grace. Unfortunately most of those also cost about as much as PS. And editor that does not correctly work with ICC profiles is not what you really want (again in my opinion).

Sorry for your troubles. Do you have kids? Nieces or nephews?
I just got CS3 at Academic Superstore online and emailed a scan
of my 10 year old son's last report card as proof for educational
status. The price break is amazing and they make purchasing easy.

best of luck,
Susan

No kids, still it's nice to hear a story about children saving you money! Maybe I'll enroll in one of those questionable mail order schools...

Greg, I tried looking around for version 7 but having similar luck as with CS2.

If I hadn't just bought a printer and a bunch of palladium and... well, everyone here surely knows this story pretty well!

Colin Graham said:

No kids, still it's nice to hear a story about children saving you money! Maybe I'll enroll in one of those questionable mail order schools...

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A better option is if you have a local art school that offers continuing education courses. Mine still does a lot of traditional darkroom photography so I get access to great darkroom facilities and the opportunity to buy software at educational prices.

There were a few PS7 on ebay that looked like they were real. But that was a few days ago.

There is one thing that should be known about educational "versions". These are not supposed to be used in a commercial setting. Once you no longer need it for classes, and start to need it for business you are supposed to pay more. How you pay more is the great unknown, some companies say that you just need to buy the next update and then you are good (Apple for their Final Cut Studio is one example).

Not trying to tell all of you what to do, you have your own moral compass to guide you after you know the choices.

Greg_E said:

Not trying to tell all of you what to do, you have your own moral compass to guide you after you know the choices.

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Something to consider...