Where to buy cheap Photoshop

[visiondr]

Does anyone know where I can get a reasonably priced and/or used legit copy of Photoshop (CS, CS2 or even version 7)?

And no, I don't want Photoshop Elements. I'm already well versed in using Photoshop and its finer features.

I'm still using 5.0... and using it via Classic emulation on my G4 Mac Mini. It would be nice to run PShop in native OSX mode (faster) and presumably gain some features found in the later versions of Photoshop. I've tried Craigslist and all I come up with are people selling "copies" of the program (likely copied CDs of the install disks without proper documentation and registration codes).

Any help/advice/personal sales would be appreciated.

Ron

[kaiyen]

what do you consider "reasonably priced?" Educational version is about $350, I think.

allan

[visiondr]

Wow, $350 seems pretty steep. Maybe I'm just a bit out of touch. I thought I might be able to procure a copy for something under $200.

[kully]

Students get it for £99. Are you a student?

[wintoid]

Can you not buy an upgrade for the version you already own?

[dmr]

My hunch (from your handle) is that you have faculty standing at some educational institution. Check with their software procurement people, or even with the bookstore. You may either get the edu price on a single copy or qualify under a site license.

[Ash]

If/When I go to uni I was thinking of using the apple education store - photoshop creative suite AND a large graphics tablet for less than photoshop on its own. Education/OEM is the cheapest way

[mr roberts]

There was a post here some time back that referred to an inexpensive and relatively unknown upgrade path from Elements (possibly included free with a camera/scanner purchase) to the latest CS2 version of Photoshop. The price looked good when I checked it out, but I ended up holding off until CS3 Universal is available for the Intel macs. Hopefully it will still be available at that point.

[dingadingdang]

you can pick it up for about 2 dollars on the streets in china! it's even got a hologram on it, very generous of Adobe, I don't know how they can make a profit at that price ;)

[MelanieC]

If I remember correctly I paid $299, educational price. It was a painful chunk of change but a considerable discount over regular price and worth it.

[mfunnell]

There was a post here some time back that referred to an inexpensive and relatively unknown upgrade path from Elements (possibly included free with a camera/scanner purchase) to the latest CS2 version of Photoshop. The price looked good when I checked it out, but I ended up holding off until CS3 Universal is available for the Intel macs. Hopefully it will still be available at that point.There was, last year, an offer to upgrade any version of PS Elements supplied with a Canon Camera or scanner to PS CS2 for a relatively low price ($300, as I recall). I took advantage, though I had to fake them out and register with a US address (and have a friend there send it to me) as funny foreigners weren't included in the offer (as is usual with pretty much any good deal). I'm pretty sure the offer expired at the end of last year, though.

...Mike

P.S. I still use PSE as well as PS CS2, as sometimes I find it more convenient, especially when making only minor adjustments.

[biomed]

I received a copy of CS for free from the son of a friend who worked for Adobe in Seattle at the time. The Academic price is $350 for CS2 - includes all the documentation. I once purchased an upgrade version of 7.0 from a computer store for $75 during a sale.

Mike

[visiondr]

Thanks all. I think maybe I should wait until a Universal binary version comes out so that, if need be, I can use it on my wife's MacBook. Does anyone know when that might arrive?

Still, since I got my scanner, I've been chafing at the slowness of filtering and managing large TIFFs on my current system even with 1Gb of RAM. Another suggestion of a legit upgrade path from PS Elements may also work for me since I bought my wife a sweet little digicam for X-mas. It's a Canon and may include a copy of Elements.

If not, I may have to "adopt" a student to get a cheaper copy. My current version is a student version purchased when I really was taking my book learnin'. Anyone know a student I could "call my own"?;)

Ron

[mjflory]

Ron, though you did mention that you've got considerable experience invested in Photoshop, you might want to take a look at a very capable free, open-source program called (rather improbably) The Gimp. ("Gimp" is said to stand for Gnu Image Manipulation Program, and Gnu stands for "Gnu's Not Unix." Just for the record.) There's a Mac OSX version available at http://www.gimp.org/downloads/.

The interface to The Gimp is quite different from Photoshop, but an ambitious user has created an interface to it called GimpShop that makes The Gimp's interface almost identical to Photoshop. It's distributed as a modified version of The Gimp, so you don't have to worry about doing two installations. It's also available for MacOS at http://www.gimpshop.net/.

Good luck and enjoy!

-- Michael

[ffttklackdedeng]

Thanks all. I think maybe I should wait until a Universal binary version comes out so that, if need be, I can use it on my wife's MacBook. Does anyone know when that might arrive?

Ron,

as far as I remember there will be no CS2 version to run natively on the Intel Macs. CS3 will do this.

[Kin Lau]

The following offer is still valid - has been for over a year, they keep extending the expiry date. Update from PSE to CS2 for $299-.

http://store.adobe.com/store/products/master.jhtml?id=catCanon

Credit to Pete Chipman from DSLRX.

[rogue_designer]

Thanks all. I think maybe I should wait until a Universal binary version comes out so that, if need be, I can use it on my wife's MacBook. Does anyone know when that might arrive?


FWIW - the current version of CS2 works just fine on the Intel MacBook's - there is a slight performance hit when compared with G5 architecture, but they still run just fine. I regularly use mine to work with 400mb + photoshop files and high-res scans.

I have not heard any word on when CS3 or any intel-mac native version is slated, but I'm not in any particular rush to upgrade again.

[mwooten]

I just went to the Adobe's online store. Here's the link;
https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&id=catWebBundle&ref=Hero#view=ols_prod&loc=en_us&store=OLS-US&category=/Applications/Photoshop&distributionOID=105&id=catWebBundle&ref=Hero

They have the upgrade listed at $169 for owners of "Photoshop CS, Photoshop 7 or earlier". I guess that "or earlier" does include v5.

[visiondr]

I just went to the Adobe's online store. Here's the link;
https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&id=catWebBundle&ref=Hero#view=ols_prod&loc=en_us&store=OLS-US&category=/Applications/Photoshop&distributionOID=105&id=catWebBundle&ref=Hero

They have the upgrade listed at $169 for owners of "Photoshop CS, Photoshop 7 or earlier". I guess that "or earlier" does include v5.

Dude, that is awesome! I'll have to check it out. My copy of v5 is totally legit. If this pans out, I'll post a response in the next few days.

Thanks,
Ron

[visiondr]

Ok, I just got off the phone with a guy at Adobe. He says that even though I have the old version (v.5..) there should be no problem with upgrading to CS2. Apparently, the upgrade package is exactly the same as the full version of the program. The only difference is that it asks for a serial number whereas the full version does not. That's also why using v.5 in Classic mode on my Mac will make no difference to the upgrade path. This is great for anyone with an old version. $169 is an awsome deal for a product that retails for three times that much.

Thanks again to mwooten.

Ron

[mwooten]

You're very welcome.

[titrisol]

2 words... THE GIMP
www. gimp.org

[DougK]

I was going to suggest Cinepaint (http://cinepaint.org/) myself. I just downloaded the OS X native version and have been playing with it a bit. I like it quite a bit so far.