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When Adobe introduced the first CS it was great, but you still had to buy Macromedia Studio alongside it if you needed to do web design. So prices aren't as bad as they used to be. On the other hand, they did an upgrade at the same price from every version of Photoshop. We even upgraded an old PS 2.5 on floppies to CS for the same price as from PS 7!

Also, when Adobe introduced CS they had Quark as a major competitor, and they screwed up on Quark 6. Ours had a bug where it didn't save the files. We said 'Hey, CS has this InDesign in it which is supposed to be pretty good, and we've paid for it, so let's give it a shot.'

Like many studios who weren't tied to Quark for any particular reason other than it was what we'd always used, we switched and never looked back. While Quark will most likely never die out, I believe it's not the automatic purchase it once was for many agencies.

So why can't a good PS/Illustrator/Fireworks competitor do the same to Adobe? For me, the issue is that if I want the latest DW and Flash, it's cheaper to buy an upgrade to Design Premium than the two separately, so the software's already in there, and in effect the extra items are 'free.'

Once the products are mature enough to really compete, the makers of Coda / Drawit / Acorn / Pixelmator etc. should make them as interoperable as possible and release a suite... not one of those MacHeist deals, but a real suite, so it undercuts even a CS upgrade (usually $600 or $700). Then we might see some competition and Adobe might start working on what the customer wants instead of adding more bullet points to the marketing dept's Powerpoint presentation. That's what Quark had to do.

Oh, and Fireworks users? Check this link for a full list of changes in CS5.
 
old bugs, new features

I've gone through these carefully, trying to decide whether to update just Photoshop, or the suite. There are many 'features' they launched in previous versions as "beginnings". AJAX integration in Dreamweaver, data-driven charts in Illustrator, that were good for demo, but not for use. When asked if they are going to flesh out these features, the product managers would always commit to building them out. They never do. Just look at the on-line help tool and go from CS3 to CS4 to CS5. The instructions are identical. There has been no effort to complete the features they launched in prior versions. I'm expecting the same will happen in CS5 - some features will demo well, but when you get it home, you find it can only do something exactly like the demo.
 
No thanks pixelmator is enough for me and it works much more better.
www.pixelmator.com
For Novice users probably, but not pros.

Content-Aware fill does not work like it did in the video on youtube. Kinda disappointed.
I had a bad feeling about this one.
One thing that has bothered me for years is when someone at NAPP does a tutorial on PSU-TV or LAYERS-TV, all the files they work on are at 72dpi.

They always give the excuse that they are using a low res file for the sake of time, but that is complete BS. Effects do not scale up proportionately.

I can't tell you how many times I've watched a cool little trick that did not even remotely work when I tried to do it on a 300 dpi file.

Acutally the company where I work is quite happy with CorelDRAW Graphic Suite and QuarkXpress combo.
Seriously? You do know that your company is a laughing stock right?
Whenever I'm scanning the job sites for Art Director/Senior GD positions, I skip right over any place that lists Corel and PCs as their graphic systems.
 
The price tag is humongous. I do like photoshop a lot - but $200 upgrade price for 'three' hot new features is asking too much. That is why it is almost nonexistent outside corporate world/creative industry as a legit app (I know a lot of hobbyists and enthusiasts do acquire it and use it by other means :rolleyes:).

I'm personally waiting on the key-generators to become available. Those guys work pretty fast at cracking.
 
Cs4 was a joke. We have 6 cs3 licenses, 1 cs4. We started upgrading all our intel macs to 10.6.3 and cs3 is becoming unstable. From what u read on cs5 we'll just get 1 of that too. We have to be able to accept indesign and illustrator in the newest suites but honestly cs4 and now cs5 are snoizers.

Adobe seems to be letting printing features in it's apps go, we've seen a distinguishable uptick inQuark files coming in. I think we got maybe 5 jobs in Quark 7, total...ever. And more than a dozen in Q8.

Quark has languished badly.....Adobe is leaving the door open, will Quark step in?

P.S. Anyone running CS3 on 10.6.3 having stability issues?
 
Problems with Pixelmator:

-No layer styles
-No color profiles
-No CMYK support
-No vector tools, including the pen tool
-No "reflect" transform
-No channels palette
-No heal tool
-Poor text tools

I'm sure there are a lot more. I just listed what I could think of off the top of my head, and I'm only a student, and video production student at that. I'm sure the professional graphic designers could list a bunch more.
 
This is why the software is 1k +

It's also *because* the software is $1K+.

If they sold the suite for $400 instead of $1800+, you can bet a lot more people would pony up. Heck, they might even actually make more money.

Actually, I'm curious what the ratio is of "pirates" to legitimate purchasers of the Adobe products.
 
It's also *because* the software is $1K+.

If they sold the suite for $400 instead of $1800+, you can bet a lot more people would pony up. Heck, they might even actually make more money.

Actually, I'm curious what the ratio is of "pirates" to legitimate purchasers of the Adobe products.
Please the fact is if it keygens werent avail, more people would buy the product and there are education versions that can be had for around 400 for some of the suites
 
CS3 to CS5

Please tell me I am reading this incorrectly. I have CS3 "Web Premium". To upgrade to CS5 Web Premium or even Design Standard, it's $200 more than if I had purchased CS4. Am I reading that correctly? If so, that is totally unfair.

Fortunately for me, CS3 is running fine on Snow Leopard.

I was ok with the upgrade for $599 US, but if it's going to be $799, then forget it.

A few years ago, I had PS stand-alone, but it got "too old" to upgrade. It just doesn't seem right... Not everyone can buy EVERY over-priced upgrade.
:(

BTW - I signed up to the forums just to post that :cool:.
 
Please tell me I am reading this incorrectly. I have CS3 "Web Premium". To upgrade to CS5 Web Premium or even Design Standard, it's $200 more than if I had purchased CS4. Am I reading that correctly? If so, that is totally unfair.

Fortunately for me, CS3 is running fine on Snow Leopard.

I was ok with the upgrade for $599 US, but if it's going to be $799, then forget it.

A few years ago, I had PS stand-alone, but it got "too old" to upgrade. It just doesn't seem right... Not everyone can buy EVERY over-priced upgrade.
:(

BTW - I signed up to the forums just to post that :cool:.

I was shocked to find that out as well.....since I don't remember Adobe ever doing that before.

The kicker is for $799 upgrade.....you could have skipped all the CS suites and gotten CS5 for $799 if you had Macromedia Studio 8!!

What's worse is how Adobe treats the people who stay current:

If I bought the upgrade from CS3 to CS4 I paid $400. If I then buy the upgrade from CS4 to CS5 I pay $599. That's a total of $1000.

If I skipped CS4 and just have CS3 (like I do), I'm paying $799. How does that make sense for CS4 users?

Adobe should have the same upgrade pricing for the last 2 versions....considering that CS4 was rushed after CS3 anyway.

-Kevin
 
Yeah, but at least when Macromedia was around Adobe had a modicum of competition. Fireworks had some advantages for web design, and I've known people who preferred Freehand to Illustrator.

Now that there's no Macromedia to worry about, Adobe can make buggy products that barely change at all between versions, and charge the sun, moon and stars for them... and we poor stupid customers have no choice but to pony up.

of course you have a choice.

CS5 is professional grade software. the idea is that you're professional/successful enough to be able to invest in these tools for your workflow.

Apple's Final Cut Studio costs $1000, and Logic Studio is $499. research other industry standard software and you'll see that it isn't necessarily affordable.

finally, i assume you whole-heartedly purchased a Mac, so i'm not convinced your complaint about things being expensive is valid.
 
of course you have a choice.

You mean the choice between buying health insurance, buying software, or shutting down my business (in the middle of a recession, when "traditional" jobs are hard to come by)?

CS5 is professional grade software. the idea is that you're professional/successful enough to be able to invest in these tools for your workflow.

Yes, but these tools are only a small portion of my workflow (I need them for creating designs and cutting up other people's designs, but not for developing web applications, which is where my real profits are). Maybe it would make more sense to me if I were sitting in Photoshop all day long every day.

research other industry standard software and you'll see that software isn't necessarily suppose to be affordable.

Yeah, but there's a lot of room for maneuvering between "affordable" and "usurious." $2K is a big hit to my bottom line. It hurts even more when I know I'm spending that on software that I can expect to be riddled with bugs that won't even get fixed until I shell out another $800 to upgrade to the next version with its new bugs.

Maybe for a corporation it's easy to spend that sort of money on "professional" software. For a freelancer, it's a lot of money. I do spend it -- I'm not a freeloader. But that doesn't mean I have to consider the prices reasonable.

I'm upset about the loss of Macromedia because competition affects both prices and quality. Even at the same prices, I'd find it a lot more palatable if Adobe didn't have what's essentially a monopoly. At least I'd be able to "vote my wallet" over their crappy QA.

finally, i assume you whole-heartedly purchased a Mac, so i'm not convinced your complaint about things being expensive is valid.

Yes, because I needed the OS, not because I have any particular attachment to it as a piece of "pretty" hardware or status symbol. And not without a certain amount of grumbling about the price and frustration about the available graphics cards. Maybe you make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but for me tossing around $2500 is not a casual choice.

I buy these things because I can't do my work efficiently without them, but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy bending over and getting ****ed over it.
 
CS5 is professional grade software. the idea is that you're professional/successful enough to be able to invest in these tools for your workflow.

It always amazes me how much complaining there is about the price. Just because people have heard of applications like Photoshop they think it's priced highly. When in reality they have no idea how much professional applications are in the real world outside of their amateur stance which are priced at a similar level or even higher. Retail for Maya is $3K.

If you are complaining about the price, odds are it was never a product meant for you anyway.
 
Is anyone else having trouble being about to download the CS5 trials from adobe? I have tried 3 browsers thinking it was a browser issue, but they all are locking up at the download page. I am unable to click the yellow "Download Now" button. Chrome is sitting at "Waiting for adobe.tt.omtrdc.net".... Opera locks up when i try to click it, and safari wont let me click it at all.

Is their a secondary download site, or any suggestions in resolving this issue.
 
This is a big update. Will be definitely picking up an educational version. The demos showing what PS5 is capable of were just amazing.
 
Maybe you make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but for me tossing around $2500 is not a casual choice. I buy these things because I can't do my work efficiently without them, but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy bending over and getting ****ed over it.

i certainly don't make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, and i don't completely disagree with you about self-employeed workers (read next comment).

The 80% student or teacher discount is not to shabby.

one thing adobe could and probably should do is extend their massive student discount to self-employed freelancers, or at least partially. it's not at all difficult to validate a sole-proprietorship thru tax numbers and registration like how they validate student customers.

i would suggest to anyone who agrees with this to voice your opinion by sending feedback to Adobe via their Feedback Forum.
 
one thing adobe could and probably should do is extend their massive student discount to self-employed freelancers, or at least partially. it's not at all difficult to validate a sole-proprietorship thru tax numbers and registration like how they validate student customers.

I think that's a spectacular idea. I'd be more than happy to jump through those hoops for even a 30% discount (something close to the student pricing would be even better, but is probably too much to hope for).

Thanks for the feedback link, btw.
 
You mean the choice between buying health insurance, buying software, or shutting down my business (in the middle of a recession, when "traditional" jobs are hard to come by)?



Yes, but these tools are only a small portion of my workflow (I need them for creating designs and cutting up other people's designs, but not for developing web applications, which is where my real profits are). Maybe it would make more sense to me if I were sitting in Photoshop all day long every day.



Yeah, but there's a lot of room for maneuvering between "affordable" and "usurious." $2K is a big hit to my bottom line. It hurts even more when I know I'm spending that on software that I can expect to be riddled with bugs that won't even get fixed until I shell out another $800 to upgrade to the next version with its new bugs.

Maybe for a corporation it's easy to spend that sort of money on "professional" software. For a freelancer, it's a lot of money. I do spend it -- I'm not a freeloader. But that doesn't mean I have to consider the prices reasonable.

I'm upset about the loss of Macromedia because competition affects both prices and quality. Even at the same prices, I'd find it a lot more palatable if Adobe didn't have what's essentially a monopoly. At least I'd be able to "vote my wallet" over their crappy QA.



Yes, because I needed the OS, not because I have any particular attachment to it as a piece of "pretty" hardware or status symbol. And not without a certain amount of grumbling about the price and frustration about the available graphics cards. Maybe you make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but for me tossing around $2500 is not a casual choice.

I buy these things because I can't do my work efficiently without them, but that doesn't mean I have to enjoy bending over and getting ****ed over it.

$2500 for all that software is not expensive and you can just buy the upgrade which starts at $899

and it's a tax deduction
 
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