CS5 - Should I take the plunge ?

[Pyrotechnic]

I know there has been a lot of discussion on here about Adobe CS5 and whether its worth the money or not. However, I have received an email from them giving me 50% off if I buy before Monday.

Now, I have never used PS before, simply as I have never been able to afford it and have refused to use any copied versions offered to me over the years. I could stretch to the £320 they are now asking, although this will be the most expensive piece of software I have ever bought.

Should I take the plunge ?

 

[Apple Corps]

Aperture or Lightroom or Photoshop or ?????

They all have some neat features but none of them have all the features.

iPhoto does a decent job with basic editing. Aperture has some excellent color fill and sharpening. PS has the nifty Content Aware Fill.

I find PS hard to follow and use - just not intuitive for me. iPhoto is limited. Aperture 3 - hmmmmmmm.

Perhaps you could expand on your needs a bit more. That may help me finally get off the fence and make a decision - can't use the Trial versions forever.

 

[Padaung]

If you really think you are going to use it in the future, then for that size a discount I'd go for it - I wish Adobe would send me an email like that.

Unless you have to have all the new features with each update there is no need to upgrade until around version CS8 (Adobe normally allow upgrades to work on the previous 3 generations, after that the upgrade becomes more expensive). PS is a fantastic piece of software. Agreed it is a tricky to use at first, but there are plenty of good online tutorials to be found after a bit of a Google.

I'm also a huge Aperture fan, and there are many that swear by Lightroom - horses for courses in my opinion (choose the best tool for the job/you).

 

[FourCandles]

Just a couple of suggestions...

1. Download the trial of Photoshop CS5 from Adobe and give it a really good workout between now and Monday;
2. Make absolutely sure that the 50% offer is genuine. I've not heard of Adobe making offers like that. Beware if the seller is anyone other than Adobe directly and take time to check the seller out.

 

[MattSepeta]

+1 on "Check the offer"

50% off sounds too good to be true....

 

[Pyrotechnic]

Here is a screen shot of the email.

 

[FourCandles]

Here is a screen shot of the email.

Looks genuine. I didn't realise it was an upgrade deal.

I'd still suggest you get downloading the trial and see how you like it. Adobe software usually lets you download a trial and then use the serial number of the package you buy to activate it (i.e. no need to reinstall the purchased version).

Good luck!

 

[HBOC]

Interesting, I haven't received the email either..but that is just for PS, as I have the master collection.

If you are going to use Photoshop, than this is a great deal. I suspect that since you have gone this long without PS, that you may not use it that much..

As others have stated, why not just download a trial and see if you like it?

 

[Designer Dale]

Interesting, I haven't received the email either..but that is just for PS, as I have the master collection. ---

It looks like it is for registered PS Elements customers in the UK only.

BTW Adobe will not let you upgrade from a suite or collection to a single product. I have CS3 Design Premium and would like to upgrade PS only. I would have to upgrade to one of the CS5 collections to qualify for the lower price. It breaks down to the same as buying PhotoShop CS5 at full price.

Dale

 

[ipodtoucher]

Take the plunge, this is an amazing version of Photoshop with tons of great new features!

 

[Pyrotechnic]

I purchased it and it arrived today. I am very impressed now I have installed it. The Content Aware Fill option is just amazing and is only 1% of what it can do so I am looking forward to actually using it as it should. Its going to take a while to learn as I have never used it before, but as it appears to be the industry standard, it will last me a good while now I have taken the first step to learning.

 

[Tanto]

I would get the Photoshop because it comes with Adobe Bridge (free) and it includes Camera RAW which does everything that Lightroom can do (pretty much). There are a couple good features the LR has that can't be duplicated as easily in the PS/Bridge combo but its all features for photographers that are dealing with lots of images from a shoot and want to apply effects over a batch of images.

50% off is a good deal. There are loads of tutorials online that will quickly get you up to speed on using various filters and effects.

 

[bzollinger]

I purchased it and it arrived today. I am very impressed now I have installed it. The Content Aware Fill option is just amazing and is only 1% of what it can do so I am looking forward to actually using it as it should. Its going to take a while to learn as I have never used it before, but as it appears to be the industry standard, it will last me a good while now I have taken the first step to learning.

Nice choice!! You'll be happy that you bought it. The content aware fill is really nice about 80% of the time for me. I also think that the 64-bit/memory usage feature will pay off. Now if they'll just release an update the utilizes our multiple core CPUs a little better!

There are many ways to learn PS, and it's easy to get discuraged, my advice to you is to go to iTunes>podcasts> and search for ones on PS. You'll find a bunch of really great video pod casts that cover virtually everything! And you can follow right along and pause and resume, it's a great resource.

Have fun!