Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3) Pricing and Upgrades

[CoreWeb]

The problem is that Adobe pretty much killed off all of the midrange competition for Illustrator and InDesign, especially on the mac, so their aren't any "lite" or "Element" editions of these for hobbyists, or modest users.

An opportunity Adobe and for other developers to be sure, though in the meantime, my modest needs still require pro applications, and I will put a bit smile on my face and drop the cash necessary, just as I do for my MCAD applications for yearly maintenance.

And even for non-hobbyists... I find that now, though I will be buying parts of Creative Suite, I believe, I will also be skipping on other parts that I once would have bought.

Really, I just want the equivalent of the old Creative Suite - InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, and a program like ImageReady. Flash and Dreamweaver I couldn't care less about.

 

[Guigue]

And even for non-hobbyists... I find that now, though I will be buying parts of Creative Suite, I believe, I will also be skipping on other parts that I once would have bought.

Really, I just want the equivalent of the old Creative Suite - InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Acrobat, and a program like ImageReady. Flash and Dreamweaver I couldn't care less about.

You just described the exact content of Design Standard

 

[CoreWeb]

You just described the exact content of Design Standard

Except it forces me to cut Fireworks. That's what irritates me.

 

[Guigue]

Except it forces me to cut Fireworks. That's what irritates me.

But Fireworks was a Macromedia app, so they're not removing it from the old Creative Suite. Plus, it's only 299 if you really need it.

 

[superleccy]

Then buy Illustrator by itself or see if you can find a second-hand copy elsewhere... if you have Illustrator already then I'm sure the upgrade prices on that app won't be too bad. Honestly, it sounds like you're in the wrong job. Come and work for us, we'll pay more than your family.

Indeed... this is the conclusion I have painfully arrived at.

Yes I'm going to have to bite the bullet and buy Illustrator.

Due to not having a previous version of any Adobe software, and due to this being intended for my forthcoming MBP, it's new CS3 or nothing (I'm not going to find a second hand copy of CS3).

Depending on the UK prices, if the cheapest bundle of Creative Suite is only a few hundred quid extra... then maybe I'll buy that, teach myself the other Adobe apps and then perhaps change my career so I can pay for my purchase!

SL

PS: I don't actually have any artistic talent - it's a shame Adobe don't sell that!

 

[Blue Velvet]

I am a web developer...

Could you then please explain why you need InDesign?

 

[superleccy]

The problem is that Adobe pretty much killed off all of the midrange competition for Illustrator and InDesign, especially on the mac, so their aren't any "lite" or "Element" editions of these for hobbyists, or modest users.

I think that's the problem here. I don't think you can blame Adobe for this... but it's certainly not doing them any harm.

SL

 

[Mundy]

Hmmmm, I have a windows version of photoshop 5.0, still shrinkwrapped... I don't know how the upgrades work, whether its a full install, just use the old serial, or what... Basically, I'd love to try going the 'upgrade to CS2' route and getting a better deal on CS3... But I have my doubts I can make the move to the Mac version...

Anyone have any idea about this?

Adobe does allow cross-grades, and I've taken advantage of it a few times. The fee was insignificant.

The one potential hurdle is that your copy of Photoshop is so old. But you won't know until you call up Adobe and ask.

 

[Mustafa]

Any guess to what the Bangkok/Hong Kong/Moscow street trader prices will be?

 

[dburney]

no mention of an upgrade to design premium. Any one know if this is an oversight or deliberate?

I'm curious about this as well. I'll need one Design Premium upgrade and two Design Standard - I'm trying to budget and Adobe's making it awful difficult.

 

[CoreWeb]

Could you then please explain why you need InDesign?

I also do print development. Haven't recently, but in the past (several times) I've created InDesign documents. And I hold that in higher importance than Fireworks.

But Fireworks was a Macromedia app, so they're not removing it from the old Creative Suite. Plus, it's only 299 if you really need it.

But they cut ImageReady. Fireworks appears to be its replacement.

 

[Joseph Duchesne]

Hmm, what's this about CMYK being a pro requirement

As an employee at a photography studio (which, I presume is one of the more common users of Photoshop), I have never used CMYK. These days the workflow works like so:
90% of the time:
You shoot a grey card, shoot the clients, grey balance and tweak the raw files as they gets imported to photoshop, bump the color/saturation/contrast with levels and curves, convert to 8 bit/channel from 16, crop, retouch, any auxiliary filters, print.

10% of the time:
Get some random photo to be restored/poster to be made/logo to be vectorized/other random job
Use healing brush, marquee tools, layers, text, maybe 10 other features, maybe a gaussian blur or add noise to parts of the image, maybe roughly combine 3 images with the panorama feature then tweak the merger and color balance up to a professional level (takes 30 minutes for large group shots), etc.

And how many of these features have changed since CS1:
None significantly.
I use 2-3 filters, and maybe 20% of the feature set.

So why am I interested in CS3? I have an intel computer as my main machine.
And why would I ever get the "Xtreme" version of photoshop? The features sound neat. (and completely useless to me for work).

Ah well....
</rant>
<life>

 

[iMeowbot]

I'm curious about this as well. I'll need one Design Premium upgrade and two Design Standard - I'm trying to budget and Adobe's making it awful difficult.

In fairness to Adobe, they haven't actually announced prices yet. These are leaks, who even knows for sure that they are final? We'll know better after they have their little show.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Hmm, what's this about CMYK being a pro requirement

For you, it may be 16-bit and I take it you don't get files ready for press then... of course most of Photoshop's tools are available in RGB but I'm not in the habit of sending RGB files to print.

 

[marekkurlmann]

Academic pricing - same release dates?

Based on how Adobe releases typically work, does anyone know or can anyone guess if CS3 will be released at academic prices on the same dates as it hits stores, or will there be a delay. If there will be a delay, any guesses on how long?

Also, do you think the online academic stores (e.g. campustech.com) will be selling CS3 from the get-go, or will we have to hit up campus bookstores?

 

[Rhema]

So....

Apple should just buy adobe.

and Nintendo

and then let me redesign the iPhone.

...yeah

 

[zoozx]

Just as expected, Adobe following Microsoft down the toilet. I really hope someday they have competition that makes them see how Fed up they have become. Any alternative would be welcome!

 

[Shadow]

Photoshop CS1 upgrade?

This may have been asked already, but will I be able to upgrade my Photoshop CS1 to Photoshop CS3, or will I need to buy CS3 as a full version as opposed to an upgrade version?

 

[Blue Velvet]

This may have been asked already, but will I be able to upgrade my Photoshop CS1 to Photoshop CS3, or will I need to buy CS3 as a full version as opposed to an upgrade version?

There will be upgrade paths from probably every version of Photoshop since v4 or 5... and that includes CS1. You shouldn't have to pay full price but it may end up being pricy-ish, maybe £120-180 or so; my guess anyway.

 

[wildmac]

I suppose it's okay if you're doing mom-n-pop sites, but I've dealt with the mess that comes with corporate sites being built on Dreamweaver and I just have a terrible bias against that app. It just makes a mess of things. It doesn't scale well to large sites (from what I've seen) and only really deals with non-dynamic content well. The happiest day of my web coding life was the day I had completely taken our web dept. off DW and switched over to BBEdit.

It may have improved over the last few years, but I have no interest in it. I think a web developer ought to get their hands dirty in code and ought to learn how to manage the kinds of things DW tries to make easy.

Umm... except BBedit sucks now too. BBedit was fine for the days of designing with tables, but it reeks for doing CSS sites. Dreamweaver is great if you need to create templated sites that allows the users to work in Contribute to update their content. Or do you enjoy doing the work a secretary should be doing?...

There are many other tools for creating great sites. And if you are doing large-scale corporate sites, why aren't you using a CMS?...

 

[wildmac]

three questions....

Why is there no upgrade to CS3 Design Premium?....

What has Adobe done with Dreamweaver?... they've said nothing about it before this...

Ditto for Flash. Have they changed anything besides the logo?...

 

[wildmac]

Hmm, what's this about CMYK being a pro requirement

As an employee at a photography studio (which, I presume is one of the more common users of Photoshop), I have never used CMYK. ........
</rant>
<life>

Your CLIENTS do... or do they use that magic RGB ink?...

 

[wildmac]

Any guess to what the Bangkok/Hong Kong/Moscow street trader prices will be?

3-5 years for you.

 

[technicolor]

Could they when CS2 was(is) out? I don't recall it.

CS2 costs 199.00 at my school bookstore

 

[wildmac]

Except it forces me to cut Fireworks. That's what irritates me.

Who needs Fireworks anymore?... unless you make animated gifs, it's useless. And please don't tell me you are still making table-sliced images for webpage layouts....