Adobe Photoshop

[Arion]

Hi, I am using TheGimp for my graphic needs but have noticed some limitations in its functions. Does anyone by chance know some website/trusted online shop where I can get Adobe Photoshop 6 or 7 (new retail version)? I can't seem to find one that still sells these old versions - at the moment, my budget is too tight to afford the CS3 one sadly :(

[Pogacha]

Which limitations do you find? If you don't mind to share.

[Stephen Morris]

Hi Arion,

Have you tried looking on eBay? Although the thoughts of kiddies burning illegal versions and posting them are typically the first thoughts, you can find some real bargains from sellers who buy the software from bankrupt companies and pass on the savings.

Just make sure you switch the price ordering to descending - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Find the median point between too cheap and RRP.

Regards,
Stephen

[sindisil]

I don't know if there are still deals like this, but I picked up CS3 for $299 after I bought a Graphire (well, my wife bought it for me for XMass ... same diff) tablet. Tablet came with Photoshop Essentials, and the $299 version was an upgrade from that.

The current low end tablet is the Bamboo, which goes for around $90, so, if a similar deal still exists, you could get CS3 for < $400, instead of $700.

[Desktop Gaming]

Considered Photoshop Elements?

Wouldn't recommend Paintshop Pro on the basis that I bought PSP9 ages ago and the GUI is awful.

[AlexWeldon]

I really think you should get CS2 or CS3 if you can. I don't find a huge difference from 2-3, but CS3 is much better than CS IMO.

[zoombapup]

You could try and find a student version, those are pretty cheap and you MUST know a student somewhere!

[WaveRider]

Zoombapup speaks with a wisdom.

Grab yourself a student (shouldn't be too hard to find. They're all over the place, like cockroaches) and hop on over to www.academicsuperstore.com. You'll be glad you did.

[Stephen Morris]

@zoombapup/WaveRider,

The student versions are limited to academic licenses only - you need to use a retail licensed version for business use.

I would also agree with Alex, I've found CS2 to be such a leap from CS. What are you trying to accomplish Arion - if you are budget-limited then you might be able to get by without Photoshop.

Regards,
Stephen

[oNyx]

Considered Photoshop Elements?
[...]

Photoshop Elements is apparently a bit crippled. Well, most of those featured aren't really useful for most of us, but they also crippled alpha/channel interaction which is pretty bad if you want to do some game graphics. (Not sure if they changed that with recent versions though.)

Personally I'm very happy with PS 6.0. It's capable of the few things I need and it starts within 3-4 seconds.

[AlexWeldon]

Zoombapup speaks with a wisdom.

Grab yourself a student (shouldn't be too hard to find. They're all over the place, like cockroaches) and hop on over to www.academicsuperstore.com. You'll be glad you did.

Hmm. Given the general anti-piracy sentiment on these forums, I'm surprised to hear people recommending using educational license software for commercial purposes. Surely that's almost as bad.

There's also a practical reason why not to go this route, namely that you can't upgrade. Once you have a full license version of an Adobe product, you can upgrade to subsequent versions for about the same price as buying an educational version... you can't, however, upgrade educational versions. Thus, the full license is really a one-time fee.

That's not to say that Adobe products aren't ridiculously overpriced... I guess we just have to wait until another company decides to make the Adobe-killer, just as Adobe themselves made InDesign as the QuarkXPress-killer.

[Maupin]

I still use Photoshop 6.0, too. Every day, in fact. I just haven't found any reason to upgrade, though I'm sure there must be some feature in the CS versions that I'd find worthwhile. Of course I started using PS back on version 2.5 when there weren't even layers (though you could kind of fake them).

I do believe Photoshop is one of the very few high-end utilities that is worth its pricetag, however.

[Reactor]

Which limitations do you find? If you don't mind to share.

I'd like to hear the answer to that as well. I've been using PhotoImpact for years, and really haven't had a need for Photoshop. Photoshop has some great, exclusive tools, but most people will never use them.

[AlexWeldon]

I'd like to hear the answer to that as well. I've been using PhotoImpact for years, and really haven't had a need for Photoshop. Photoshop has some great, exclusive tools, but most people will never use them.

Well, for one thing, the direction my art has been taking recently makes heavy use of the liquify filter, which is infinitely superior to the smudge tool for a lot of things, since it doesn't blur stuff as much... for instance, making a wood grain texture is very easy with a combination of scribbling, using motion blur in the direction of the grain, and then liquify to make it more organic. Maybe a bit of unsharp mask, depending on where in the image it appears and how much you want it to pop.

Although I haven't been using it, now that I think about it, the vanishing point tool would probably be quite useful for some of the stuff I've been working on.

I don't use the collapsable tabbed palettes for Photoshop, but they're great in InDesign.

Autotrace in Illustrator is a huge boon for people who like to draw by hand and scan things in to give them a digital treatment afterwards.

There are also a lot of little things. Strange as it sounds, one of the things that convinced me to upgrade was that I was working a day job where they had CS2 and I still had CS at home, and I got really used to being able to delete layers with the backspace key while using the move tool. Like having a scroll wheel on your mouse, it seems like a small thing at first, but once you're used to it, you can't go back.

[BrutoMemo]

The most important 'new' feature in Photoshop CS2 and up IMO is that you can customize shortcuts. This is a must have feature if you have tight deadlines.

[svero]

The most important 'new' feature in Photoshop CS2 and up IMO is that you can customize shortcuts. This is a must have feature if you have tight deadlines.

What do you mean by this? Keyboard shortcuts?

[Arion]

To Pogacha, well being a former student using Photoshop, the switch to theGimp was a bit tough for me. The interface was tough to deal with at first but though, I'm quite at ease with thegimp now, I find photoshop more easy to use due to my past course using the software.

To Stephen Morris - thanks for the tips, I'm going to have a look at it. Went to Amazon but the price of CS3 and 7 was more or less the same. I guess I'll end up using thegimp at the moment, or as a last ressort, take some extra cash from my hard earn savings to buy it - but still it's tough to decide due to its actual price........

To sindisil, I already have a graphic tablet - a Genius one. Would love to have a wacom in the futur, but I will have to see how my 1st game does for its debut.

[BrutoMemo]

What do you mean by this? Keyboard shortcuts?

Yes, customizing keyboard shortcuts. For instance, someone painting a background will certainly use a lot the eyedropper tool to copy the color and brush (shortcut "B").
Having a key to switch between them quickly is a bless. The shortcuts for increase the hardness/softness and size up and down are great as well. In photoshop CS2/3 you can assign more intuitive shortcuts to tasks that doesn't have one by default like brightness/contrast, duplicate layers group, etc.

[defanual]

There another consideration for anyone thinking of getting photoshop or cs2/cs3. cs4 is imminent!

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/
http://tv.adobe.com/#

Still waiting to see that moment when Adobe blatantly acknowledges the game dev industry other then for defunct products like director 11. (Still got a few videos/reading material to go through though, so still some hope)

[AlexWeldon]

There another consideration for anyone thinking of getting photoshop or cs2/cs3. cs4 is imminent!

Good point. Personally, I think that the best strategy is to buy for the first time right after a new version comes out, and then upgrade every second version, unless there's something you really need. I don't see anything in CS4 that I absolutely must have, though there are a couple of nice-looking things in Illustrator. Anyway, I'll be waiting for 5.

[defanual]

Yeah, I'd pretty much agree with that Alex, certainly a good strategy :)

Oh, I've made a thread especially for cs4 links, thoughts and feedback right here: http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=14583

[Dave TZ]

Regarding academic licenses, Adobe used to have two different types of licenses: student and education. The student edition was for academic use only, while the education edition was the same as the full priced version in terms of functionality and could continue to be used after the student finished their studies. The education edition was about twice the price of the student, but roughly a third of the full. I picked up a copy of CS3 last year before my student pricing privileges ran out.

I'm unsure as to whether it qualifies for upgrades however. I'm fairly sure that apart from the box Adobe has said it was exactly the same as the full version however, so it probably is okay. I may need to double check this when I decide to upgrade myself.

However, you will need to be a student or a teacher in order to qualify for this version, so it may not be viable for you specifically.
-----
Edit: According to this Adobe FAQ, the Education version is fine for upgrading. So it's definitely a good deal if you're a student.

[KNau]

Have you GIMP users tried GIMPShop? It's a hack that makes the GUI and menu layout much closer to Photoshop.

Another option is Aviary, which is a very powerful online set of imaging tools. I've only futzed with the beta briefly but was very impressed with it.

Don't worry about the "piracy police" going on about abusing the educational versions. If you can do it, go for it and buy the full Creative Suite once you can afford to.

However, if you're still using educational version a year from now then it's time to question your business plan because you should be able to afford the full price by then.

[Acord]

Gimpshop is pretty sweet. Also, as a long time user of both programs, there are a lot of things that gimp is better at than PS, so don't knock it just because you aren't used to it.

[Pogacha]

Another option is Aviary, which is a very powerful online set of imaging tools. I've only futzed with the beta briefly but was very impressed with it.

I just wanted to say that this is the best looking site I have ever seen. A pleasure to navigate it.
I bet they can sell new guinea worms adoption certificates and people would buy them anyway.

Sorry for the OT, but I needed to say that.

I didn't understand how it works online ... shouldn't it be too much slow? ... or is it about downloading an activeX component where the "online" is just because you work in your browser.

[Sysiphus]

well, cmyk and print related stuff handling. Still not there.

Lacking good wacom support in Windows versions (and am afraid till some point as well in Linux (I use linuxes as well at work, in the past at home)) . Which has a lot of problems.

Several non existing tools. (way too long, conflict-bringing to list) . Interface is not as fast, imo, not so well used the space either.

layer special effects and layers mode, layer groups and combos, many things. Imo is quite far from Photoshop yet. But is a nice tool. Many more things. But are mostly seen if have a deep knowledge of both. Which is not common.

Quite basic but nice, you may want to try getpaint.net

[KNau]

Paint.net is quite good. Aviary still has a number of issues and, yes, speed is one of them (it's Flash based).

For those who missed it, I posted in the General section that PD Particles is free on giveawayoftheday for Saturday, September 28. It's definitely a paint tool worth having in your collection.

[Acord]

Bah - the CMYK and print handling aren't important. They don't even really manage to keep up with modern printers, since almost all of them, including the pro ones will convert anything you send to them to RGB and then back to CMYK anyways.

Some print shops prefer CMYK, but if they're using equipment that old, you should probably look for a new one anyways. All that crap about gamuts etc. went out the door a couple of years ago. That sort of thing is only useful for color plate separation, which is slow and inefficient compared to modern printing equipment.

[Arion]

I have seen PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 6 RES WIN on some online shop - does anyone know what the RES means? Is it the retail version/can we use it for business purposes? Thanks!

[Acord]

Elements is totally not worth it - it's basically a tool for the mom and pop who want to slightly edit their home photos. Save your money.