U of S | Mailing List Archive | alt-photo-process-l | Re: OT: Photoshop CS4 upgrade overpriced

Re: OT: Photoshop CS4 upgrade overpriced



CS4?? Why?, Why?, Why?

The clone tool, levels/curves/saturation/.unsharp mask etc etc etc are exactly the same as Pshop6. Adobe con you into assuming you need to keep upgrading, but what do you actually do with it? Lets face it, unless you habitually make complicated montages or are a graphic designer or do need very high end repro facilities or need the integration that the cs suite offers, you may as well use pshop 5,6,7,or as I do, plain old CS/2/3 (on a daily professional basis). Get your exposure/composition and focus right in the first place and you hardly need Photoshop other than to print through (and the printer driver for Macs in CS3 is appaling).

Sorry that this doesn't answer your question but I think if more people questioned their requirements and ignored the marketing hype and peer pressure, Adobe would be forced to abandon their policy of frivolous change and actually produce a product that is more tuned to the requirements of its users.

I'll get off my soapbox now ;~)

Julian.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Schmitz" <gws1@columbia.edu>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 10:54 AM
Subject: Re: OT: Photoshop CS4 upgrade overpriced


Dan,

You don't really address my question. Is the upgrade from CS3 Premium to CS4 worth $600? I use Photoshop more as a utility - as you are aware I prefer a negative, lens and sensitized paper to digital gagag. That said I do use Photoshop from time to time. Has CS4 (hard to believe Adobe can really jump to a new ver. # as fast as they have) really added enough new functionality to justify me plunking down that much cash; or can I plug along with what I've got? Most pay as you go software that I've had to buy of late I would label "buggy" "bloatware;" I only buy the new versions so I don't get cut off from support or get nailed with having to buy it all over again if I fall 2 "versions" behind. But given the price Adobe is asking if I miss one upgrade, it will be cheaper for me to buy the software new. My original question, again, is do you think the benifits of owning the new version are worth the price - and what are those benefits (from the mouth of somebody who is using the software to do real work? BTW, if you are getting any perks from Adobe, and I assume you are not - please mention that too.

--g


Dan Burkholder wrote:
Hey Greg,

If you can get just the Photoshop CS4 upgrade for the price mentioned by Richard, then yes, you should go for it. The $600 you quote sounds like an upgrade for the entire suite of products. Adobe must figure if you're using that full batch of applications that you're making money with all of them. That isn't always the case of course.

CS4 is another of those upgrades that hook you like crack; it's really hard to go back to CS3 (I'm speaking just Photoshop here) after getting a taste of the "4". I'd also add that, with CS4, Adobe has finally moved to define Photoshop as the domain for serious image editors and not the stuff for casual users. The transition to CS4 forces us to make some pretty major changes to the way we make selections and masks and modify them. Don't get me wrong; the changes are almost all for the good. It's just that the learning curve has been steepened somewhat for those who haven't had a good workflow to begin with. Make sense?

To throw a bit of a wrench into your decision process, the Extended version of Photoshop offers some neat capabilities that are missing from the Standard version of CS4. I don't think Adobe has an upgrade path from Standard to Extended so you best decide before purchasing. If memory serves, you can upgrade an older Standard version of CS2 or CS3 to the Extended version of CS4 at a fair price. Just don't expect to upgrade CS4 Standard to CS4 Extended for any price approaching reasonable. ;^)

Hope this helps!

Dan

info@DanBurkholder.com
www.DanBurkholder.com

On Mar 8, 2009, at 8:30 AM, Greg Schmitz wrote:


I have Adobe Photoshop CS3 Creative Design Premium and can't decide if I should upgrade to CS4. It seems to me that Adobe's asking price of $600 for an upgrade is "over the top." Will I get $600 worth of improvement if I upgrade to CS4? I'd be interested in hearing from those of you that have upgraded to CS4 if you think the upgrade was worth the money. $600 is 2-weeks of work for me and I am loath to give it to some Silicon Valley wonk so that he/she can continue to drive their Porsche or BMW whenever they want to.

--greg





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