adobe Software

I don't think the prices for Adobe Suites differ that much from place to place. Adobe itself is a good place to start looking. Maybe they have some offers that suit you. Or if you are a student and can validate for the student pricing then you will get the suites fairly cheap.

But yes, they are expensive as hell, but for me there is really no option and in the end they are worth the money easily... at least when your income rely on getting work done efficiently.

 

I got photoshop, indesign, illustrator and some other stuff for just 30 bucks with student discount.

 

Whoa! Student you say? Adobe has AWESOME academic deals. They are more than generous, so kudos to them (would that A$$pple were that way...).

Here's one site I've purchased from: http://www.uscollegebuy.com/0ab/asl.htm

You could get the Production Premium suite for US$355.

The licensing seems to be dependent on your school; they seem to have licensing deals for schools that use their products vs just generic student versions; it's been a while. And although this is the US of A site, I would think they must be similarly generous overseas. I hope. Or you could enroll in Stanford for a while...I hear they'll let anyone in, and are particularly impressed with UK accents (well, except for Scotland, but they're leaving, right?)

Kidding aside, search through their website. And check the suites, since they may not sell Premiere as a one-off but would in a suite.

Rob

 

Well I think your best option would be this: http://store2.adobe.com/cfusion/sto...yProduct&categoryOID=6834543&store=OLS-EDU-UK

As a student you get very reasonable price for the suite.
But CS6 is coming fairly soon, so you might want to wait for that?
As student editions can't be upgraded.

 

try http://www.adobe.software4students.co.uk/adobeuk.aspx?id=16

 

The prices tend to remain same or very similar between releases.
Unless the package you've been looking at is some special promotion (-20%) or something, then CS6 will probably be somewhat more expensive.

CS6 should be a "major" update, so I would wait anyway. Just my two cents.

 

No upgrade available.

Just a reminder...student priced software is usually a deadend, because you won't be able to upgrade to next version when it comes out. So if your happy with that then go for it.

 

Same-o same-o

The 'student and faculty' price is usually pretty close to the upgrade price.

Perry

 

That is incorrect. I bought the CS5 version and when CS5.5 was released I paid $25 for the upgrade. Might have been $35 I don't exactly remember now.

 

Start with the Adobe web-site for tutorials.... I have found lots of good info there, and a lot of the content is written by pros using the SW, not just the Adobe document writers.

Third party tutorials on the web, in my personal experience, may or may not be useful.... it's kind of hit-n-miss until you identify the good sites from the wankers. The Adobe content has never let me down. I may find an easier way to do the task, but at least the Adobe help is never outright stupid..... which I can't say about some of the 3rd party help I've found on the web.

Luck.

ps Personally, I find it easier to learn a specific task - when I need to do that task, rather than try to learn a bunch of stuff that I may need. This means I need to leave an extra day to learn - before I actually try to do - so time management is important. When I find the web-page or tutorial that really helps with that task, I don't just save the link - I save the content to a folder on my system. With that said, I am constantly reading the trade magazines that tell you how to do tasks. I don't necessarily try to learn the task.... just the terminology and concept in general, so that when I need to do a particular task I will know a) that it can in fact be done, and b) what terms to look up in order to find the steps needed.

I am of the philosophy that very little of what I do is "unique" or "the 1st". Therefore someone has already figured out what I want to do, and has probably written about it. Saves me a lot of time.

 

There are different trade magazines for the different modules, and also the different users of a module. Just find a good magazine store and browse until you find something that works for you.

I agree, to a point, that trying to know as much as possible about the software will help you translate vague ideas into a finished image. However, the Adobe products are so sophisticated and complex that even if you have been using them professionally for years, you don't know all the tricks. And the advanced techniques are often built on doing a sequence of basic techniques. So... you gotta learn those basic ones first.

You don't have to wait for a "job" before exploring a tool. When I have time, I will sometimes assign myself a "job" that requires me to learn a new Photoshop technique.... trying to duplicate a look I have seen in a photo, for example.

There is no magic bullet. You have to use the tools, and learn them - I prefer one at a time - by actually putting them into use. It just takes time and dedication.

I took a short Photoshop course (version 3! yikes!) and that was useful because we learned a tool, then we practiced using it. Adobe also has books called "Classroom in Book", which we used for that course. Hopefully they are better now because back then the instructor was making several corrections to the text each class.

Luck.

 

OP you can look at a site like this:

http://www.lynda.com

Its cheaper (usually) than a book is for a month of video tutorials.

There is also DigitalTutors.com but its usually for really high end software and I'm not sure that they have too much in the way of Photoshop. (Usually its only mentioned during texturing tutorials).