How to legally purchase Photoshop and InDesign for cheap?

What is the most cost-effective legal way to acquire Photoshop and

InDesign: 1. Buy a peripheral that contains a lite edition and pay

the upgrade price for the full version? 2. Get outdated full

versions from E-Bay and upgrade? or 3. Buy full versions advertised

as registerable on E-Bay? Or are there other clever options? I want

to be ethical and get software I can register, but quality at a

discount is attractive.

Have you thought of registering as a student at a community college and getting the educational discount? I beleive a full featured legal copy is $250.00

The discount for students is substantial.

If you don't do pro printing stuff (such as color separations) get Photoshop

Elements... it has 99% of the features of Photoshop. As for InDesign, get a

Mac :) they come free with InDesign these days :-)

I'm not sure buying a Mac is any cheaper than InDesign.

 

Photosho 6, as a full features version just labeled for students, was $300 in the fall of 2001. Not bad at half price, but still a bit much if you ask me.

 

Then again, if you'd like to upgrade from pagemaker to Indesign, I can give you an old version of that crappy program for free. :) That's only $300.

Steve,

 

I picked a full version of Photoshop 6 and the upgrade to Photoshop 7 on E-bay for $300.

<p>Buy one of Adobe's collections. The Design Collection includes PS, InDesign, Illustrate & Acrobat for $999.</p>

 

<p>And, there's a special deal with Dell. If you buy a Precision Workstation, you get the Design Collection for $699.</p>

 

<a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/designcoll/main.html?collmain">http://www.adobe.com/products/designcoll/main.html?collmain</a>

And if you're a student, the whole design collection is $400. You get Photoshop 7 plus Illustrator 10, InDesign 2, and Acrobat 5.

I can't believe this. How would you like someone to come up to you and say, "how can we get by with paying this Steve a couple of bucks an hour less for the work he does"?

Great suggestions folks. Does an educational version carry any future upgrade restrictions? Kevin, you sound like the ideal photographic client; if you have any commercial work you need done, let me know!

Kevin -

 

People try to find bargains on items all the time. Why should software be any different? As a programmer, I'm happy to hear, "How can I get this cheapest in a legal way?" instead of, "Where can I download this?".

 

Steve -

 

No advice for you, but thanks for the thread. As an amateur photographer who has outgrown Elements, I've been wondering the same thing. $600 may be nothing if you're making money off your photos, but to a hobbiest, that's a lot of money.

Photoshop 4 + Photoshop 7 upgrade is cheaper than any

educational version and "more legal". It is also cheaper than

the upgrade from a lite version. Full version of PS7 offered

at a very low price on Ebay are probably of questionable origin.

The upgrade is totally identical to the full version, the only

difference is that it requires you to obtain an activation

number by calling Adobe with your PS4 serial number.

Tuan <a href = "http://www.terragalleria.com">Terra Galleria</a>.

there is an old saying that goes something like this

 

"do what others won't do for a couple of years, and then you can do what others can't do for the rest of your life"

 

Translation. Instead of working hard to find stuff cheap, work hard to make a little more money and buy what you want. In most cases you get what you pay for, and in 50 years I have yet to run across a truly free lunch.

 

Kevin

Kevin,

 

Just saw your response to another post on the large format forum:

 

<There is an old saying that goes something like this.

 

"if you will do for two years what most people won't do, you can do for the rest of your life what most people can't do"

 

 

translation. instead of doing with less, find a way to earn a little bit more and buy the better quality stuff. In the long run you will be happy you did.

 

-- kevin kolosky , January 13, 2003; 05:34 P.M. Eastern>

 

Who's not working hard enough here?

Steve

 

same type of question so same type of answer.

 

Whose not working hard here? Well, I work for myself so I was able to give myself the day off? That is because instead of two years I did what most people wouldn't do for three years by going to law school and now I can do what most people can't do (walk into courtrooms and talk to judges in chambers and all kinds of good stuff)

and how did I do it. Not by worrying about how little money I had becasue I was flat broke when I started Instead I worked my ass off and paid for it myself and when I was finished I didn't have a single student loan. So . . . . . . . .

Have you considered using the GIMP? It's good software at a good price: free.

 

http://www.gimp.org

 

Before everyone jumps down my throat with "you're not answering his question" I just thought that perhaps the GIMP would meet his needs as well as Photoshop at a very attractive price.

I agree Kevin. I worked my ass off (worked smart, not just hard) and was able to retire by my early 40's. Now I do just whatever I like, when I like. I also did what no one else wanted to do for a short time rather than go the easy way until I got the gold watch.

 

But that aside you will only find it so cheap and at that point you just have to either put up or shut up. Just because you have a Taurus pocket book doesn't mean you should be able to browbeat some guy down on a Benz, cause you REALLY want one.

 

There are cheaper alternatives to PS out there (the Taurus price range)that I am sure will do you for now. Once you make or save some more money you could then buy PS.

 

I do commend your desire to purchase your program legally. There are to few people like you.

 

I'd be willing to bet that over 50% of the people on this site who use PS have obtained it, shall we say, under the table.

 

It's no wonder so many software companies go out of business.

Adobe recently offered Photoshop 7, down from $499 to $299, online. I purchased - it's the full retail version. InDesign 2.0 was offered for a free 30 day full trial version 2 weeks ago - CD shipped. If you keep checking their website, if time is on your side, it's likely there will be similar offers.

To get a education version you need a student or faculty I.D., when you upgrade they charge the same amount anyway. Buying Adobe Publishing Collection would be cheaper than buying InDesign and Photoshop seperately.

Educational versions aren't usually upgradeable. As Quang-tuang suggested, NOS versions of early PS are often dirt cheap, carry a legit serial #s and allow you to buy the current upgrade. Sorry that you had to endure the spew from the latter-day Horatio Algers, Steve.

The educational version of Photoshop is upgradeable. I purchased the Web Design suite (Photoshop, GoLive, InDesign, LiveMotion) as a student and have recently upgraded both Photoshop and GoLive to the current (noneducational) versions. However, unless you are going to sign up for a class and then immediately drop it, or you would be taking a college level class anyway, the cost of tuition more than balances out what you will save by simply buying the retail version. Whoever mentioned buying Photoshop 4 and then purchasing the upgrade had the right idea.

What about taking a class and buying the educ. version...not to

save money (tuition + edu. = full price), but to learn how to fully

use PS as well as to own it? After all, it's not PS that does the

image processing, it's the skill of the operator. That way you win

2 ways.

Thanks for all the responses. Cost of ordering a full retail version of Photoshop 5, with serial number, was $83 on half.com and a Photoshop 7 upgrade was $135 from PC Mall (with shipping rebate). Net result is a cost of $220 or so for legal, registered current version of PS7--with enough savings to pay for a new 120G hard drive and a couple of training texts.