Where did you get your Photoshop CS4?

[mjm]

my wife and I are getting more serious about photography and plan on buying Photoshop CS4. There are countless places on the internet to buy from; but when the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Where on the internet did you buy your Photoshop from and would you buy from them again?

Thanks!

 

[Robthebrit]

my wife and I are getting more serious about photography and plan on buying Photoshop CS4. There are countless places on the internet to buy from; but when the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Where on the internet did you buy your Photoshop from and would you buy from them again?

Thanks!

I downloaded it as an upgrade from the Adobe store.

Rob

 

[nwoods]

I always get my Adobe products direct online from Adobe, but I ask for the CD.

 

[DaktariEd]

I've used MacMall since the late 80's or early 90's.

 

[Desertdude]

Adobe store and/or the Apple store online.

 

[mjm]

This is just a sample of the price differences:

www.adobe.com $699
www.bhphotovideo.com $640
www.Amazon.com $640

Who are these people????
www.EStockWare.com $490
www.SoftwareSurplus.com $499

 

[tdesanto]

You can download from Adobe. Check out what their latest rules are for upgrading vs. paying full price.

In the past you could even pay the upgrade price if you owned a valid copy of photoshop elements. I got a copy of elements with each of my scanners, and I used that product code to upgrade. It saved me quite a bit of dough as you will see when you visit the Adobe store.

 

[Curmudgeon]

Who are these people????
www.EStockWare.com $490
www.SoftwareSurplus.com $499

Read the reviews at www.resellerratings.com

SoftwareSurplus = rating of 0 out of 10. Not one customer has anything nice to say about them. You will likely get ripped off.

EStockWare = No reviews. Beware.

I have been dealing with B&H for about 30 years, and they sell about as cheaply as is possible. If you find it for substantially less than their price, beware. Something ain't right. If you check B&H at Reseller Ratings, you will find they have a very high customer rating, 9.67 out of 10.

JP

 

[DiploStrat]

Contrarian Comment

If you want to get serious about photography, then buy Aperture or Lightroom.

If you want to get serious about graphic arts, then buy Photoshop.

Photoshop was once the only real game in town, but most photographers don't need layers, text, etc. Many photographers who use Lightroom or Aperture report that they rarely ever need Photoshop anymore. (And Elements is usually enough to do Christmas card, calendars, announcements, etc.)

Consider this article: http://www.digitalphotopro.com/soft...medium=email&utm_campaign=DPPeNewsApr1_022409

You could have a lot of money left over for photography trips, etc., with the price difference.

I bought my copy of Elements from Adobe as an upgrade.

 

[sgt rock]

if you are a student you can get the master suite for 999.00 or the cs4 suite for 250.00...i even know people that signed up for one class at one unit to get student pricing. one drawback is you can only ad it on one pc....

 

[Michael Slade]

If you want to get serious about photography, then buy Aperture or Lightroom.

If you want to get serious about graphic arts, then buy Photoshop.

Next term I will be teaching Lightroom and not doing very much teaching in Photoshop. I see a migration away from Photoshop and towards Lightroom for many photographers. We will not be getting CS4.

I would say that I am a bit ahead of the curve as far as photographic education is concerned, as I have not heard anyone else I know that is teaching professionally making the same move. I do think it is going to happen.

DiploStrat is exactly, precisely, 100% correct about LR vs. PS.

 

[Lost Canadian]

I'm actually surprised so many people go straight for Photoshop CS. LR is superpowerful and it's faster and easier to use. You can't do textures or layers but you can get creative in LR. For instance, what kind of look do you want?

Want that toy camera look.

How about that dark edgy look?

Old school cross processed your thing?

How about a HDR'ish look?

These are but a few samples I've done, there are tons more you could do, and best of all you can save them as quick presets. LR can do most of the things many photographers want. It's all I use.

 

[haven]

I object to Apple Aperture simply because it's a Macintosh-only product.
Adobe Lightroom has versions for PCs or Macs. There's no sense in painting
yourself into a corner, so to speak.

IMHO, Apple's OS X offers a significant advantage over PCs with Windows XP
or Vista (I really dislike Vista). But Windows 7 is a different story. I'm
running the beta Windows 7 on a machine at home, and it's great. I
predict that Windows 7 will send Macintosh market share lower in 2010,
particularly if Apple continues to charge such a large premium for its
hardware.

I do agree that Photoshop is pricing itself out of the market.

Chip Haven

 

[DiploStrat]

Of course the fact remains ...

that Windows 7 loads and runs faster on a Mac than on most (all?) PC's. (WashPost Tests) And yes, Windoze 7 may finally be a real operating system.

Of course, I have been waiting for Microsoft to crush Apple since 1984 when I bought my first Mac. ;-)

The Aperture vs. Lightroom contest is actually a bit closer. In simplest terms, Lightroom is faster to market with slightly nicer editing tools, Aperture is a much, much deeper program - which may be utterly irrelevant to most users unless you have lots of images to search, like full screen editing, use soft proofing, and a few other things. The only "wrong" answer to this question would be to keep switching and never master either program.

And of course, if you have been using Photoshop since release I, there is no reason to stop - it is still WAY more powerful than either LR or AP.

Edited to Add Disclaimer: I am far from a professional photographer - I just like to take pictures.

 

[sinuhexavier]

DiploStrat is exactly, precisely, 100% correct about LR vs. PS.

I have to agree as well. As a working photographer I seldom open PS, unless I really didn't do my job while shooting the initial pic...