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Adobe CS5 for Free?

3587

3587

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 23, 2008
753
87
I have a Mac Pro and I figured this would be the area to ask... I am looking at purchasing Adobe Photoshop CS5... The price is outrageous! I am a college student and web designer, where could I get this product for cheap/free? I've been told that most people don't have to pay for it anymore, but I want a legitimate purchase... How does one go about this?

Thanks.
 
3587 said:
I've been told that most people don't have to pay for it anymore, but I want a legitimate purchase... How does one go about this?
Click to expand...

Can't imagine who would have told you that most people don't have to pay for it anymore... unless they are referring to piracy

But kudos for wanting a legitimate purchase

As a college student, check with your school or with Adobe
There should be student editions/discounts available
 
Like others have mentioned above, an academic license is probably your cheapest option. I did get a legitimate "free" installation of CS4 Master Collection through my work. We have a license agreement through our school district which allows me to have it on my personal laptop so long as I remain an employee.

My college bookstore also offers the CS5 Master Suite for $600. Which is a KILLER discount compared to retail...

I'd stay away from eBay, and other used offers.
 
3587 said:
I've been told that most people don't have to pay for it anymore, but I want a legitimate purchase... How does one go about this?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Where's you hear there???

Most people do pay the retail price. if you're a student, then adobe does offer their products at a significant discount.

Then of course there's alternative products that do similar tasks.
 
There is no legitimate way to get it for free, aside from the 30 day trial.
 
Academic versions are not eligible for future upgrade pricing of new versions, yes?
Click to expand...

Typically, academic licenses don't qualify for upgrades, nor should they. The whole point of academic software licensing is to familiarize students with the software without breaking their banks, promoting future business when their careers can justify the expense involved with commercial software licensing.


But anyway, as far as the OP is concerned, Adobe's direct academic pricing has always been fairly reasonable. But also look into your college bookstore. Often, they have agreements with software publishers to offer even better pricing.
 
Student discounts are way cheaper than retail prices, so take advantage of them while you're a student. That said, the best actual discount you can get is knowing somebody who works at Adobe...then you can get CS design premium or web premium for $100.

Which almost feels like robbery.
 
CaptainChunk said:
Typically, academic licenses don't qualify for upgrades, nor should they.
Click to expand...

Well it depends; if you have a student license it's not upgradeable, but if you have an academic license, you can upgrade to the regular version on the next release. Notably the only difference between the academic license and full license is the price. The student license restricts use to non-commercial and prohibits installing on 2-owned machines whereas the academic license does not have these two restrictions.

I contacted Adobe regarding this before I purchased CS5 as I was unsure if I had to pay for a full license or I could upgrade. I was given the green light to purchase an upgrade license.
 
alphaod said:
Well it depends; if you have a student license it's not upgradeable, but if you have an academic license, you can upgrade to the regular version on the next release. Notably the only difference between the academic license and full license is the price. The student license restricts use to non-commercial and prohibits installing on 2-owned machines whereas the academic license does not have these two restrictions.

I contacted Adobe regarding this before I purchased CS5 as I was unsure if I had to pay for a full license or I could upgrade. I was given the green light to purchase an upgrade license.
Click to expand...

This is 100% true, for anyone wondering.
 
Honumaui said:
also you are not supposed to be using the academic ones to make money off of ?
Click to expand...

I believe that restriction was removed. But - check the Adobe site. All of the terms are there. They want to sell you a license, so they make it easy.

And.... as an added note to anyone thinking of a pirated version. Downloading a pirated version of CS is one of the very few ways that it's possible to catch a trojan for OS X. Not every pirated version has a trojan, but there are only 2 or 3 applications, afaik, that have been, um, "upgraded" with this extra feature - and CS is one of them.

kudos to the OP for wanting to go legit.
 
Academic pricing gets you Photoshop CS5 Extended (full) for $299, for example. Regular retail costs $699 and Extended retail costs $999.

The Extended non-academic upgrades cost the same price ($299), and you can use those after you lose academic purchasing privileges (after you graduate). Doing this converts your academic version to the full retail version.

This does mean however that you are locked into buying the Extended upgrades to continue your licensing path, which cost $100 more than the regular upgrades ($199). (you won't be able to, for example, upgrade from CS5 Extended to CS6 Regular when it comes out - you must buy the CS6 Extended Upgrade)
 
I've also read that if you buy a package, let's say the master collection, you can't later upgrade just one product, you have to buy the upgrade for the whole collection.

I'm still rocking Photoshop 5.5 on Windows (not CS5 mind you, 5.5) and Photoshop CS on Mac. I guess I upgrade so rarely anyway that I wouldn't be eligible for upgrades anyway, so the student version would be fine.

What I'd really like to do is get a new copy of Photoshop and have one of my computers be Mac and the other Windows. I know two computers are allowed on one license, but I wonder if they can be different platforms.
 
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