Adobe Photoshop for free?

[mcq]

hi
i have been thinking of buying the new adboe photoshop. im a bit skint at the mo, so do u know where i can get it for free?
thanks

[JamieR]

You can't...not legally that is. However, the the Gimp - www.gimp.org - free alternative to Photoshop.

Jamie.

[whackaxe]

you can maybe get an academic version for approx 1/4 of the price if you are a student. you aren't allowed to do any commercial work with it though. thats the restricton. otherwise you can go for Photoshop Elements. its around 100$ (1/10 of the price of PSCS) and works quite well i'm told. a friend of mine does presentations for adobe (more particularly photoshop elements and premiere elements) and his boss (the head of Adobe France) claims PS elements3 is 80% of PSCS.

otherwise, as Weazel mentioned there is Gimp. it's interface is bit rugged and ot the easyest to work with (you can say bye bye to your task bar space :) ) but it works good enough.

[Talkfreelance]

Photoshop elements is basically a scaled down photoshop and might be worth investing in (depends what you're going to do with it) :)

[tboss132]

Macromedia Fireworks (http://www.macromedia.com) has a lot of the functionality of Photoshop and is a lot cheaper. Same is .Jasc Paintshop Pro (http://jasc.com)

[JamieR]

Photoshop elements is basically a scaled down photoshop and might be worth investing in (depends what you're going to do with it) :)

Argh....Photoshop elements is horrid. OK, it is a scaled down version of Photoshop CS, but I found it just too basic when I used it - I have it at school :mad:.
On a good note, PS Elements is great for someone who doesnt want to buy the full version as it is only something like £100.

Jamie.

[whackaxe]

Argh....Photoshop elements is horrid. OK, it is a scaled down version of Photoshop CS, but I found it just too basic when I used it - I have it at school :mad:.
On a good note, PS Elements is great for someone who doesnt want to buy the full version as it is only something like £100.

Jamie.

are you shure you used version 3.0? if you used v2.0 i totaly agree it's missing loads, but Adobe decided to add lots of things back in to v3

[JamieR]

are you shure you used version 3.0? if you used v2.0 i totaly agree it's missing loads, but Adobe decided to add lots of things back in to v3

No I havent tried v3 - I was refering to v2, which is rubbish.

Jamie.

[Riboflavin]

You could always download the 30 day trial (http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jsp#product=39) and use that until you have the money to buy it :thumbsup:

[rmedek]

Argh....Photoshop elements is horrid.

That's crazy talk, man... name one thing on your website that you couldn't have used PS Elements to do (I don't mean, say, the CSS Zen Garden website... obviously there are limitations...). I used it for awhile, got the regular Photoshop, and still find myself loading up PSE when I have simple web things to do.

[FXdgtal]

you cant get the good stuff for free this days...though having your very own full version of photoshop is worth it...so if you have the cash go for it. :thumbsup:

[Grant Palin]

You could try looking for it on eBay...I did, and got the full version of Photoshop 6 for about $50!

[grump]

Definately get GIMP... it has practically all the features of Photoshop and is 100% free... the few things it can't do that Photoshop can it makes up for by doing other things better... scripting in particular comes to mind... definately a poor designers best friend...

[evo]

Getting any software from eBay carries its own risk. There is nothing to prove that what you are going to get is a copy, so make sure whatever you do get comes with the box, cd and manual.

[Grant Palin]

Getting any software from eBay carries its own risk. There is nothing to prove that what you are going to get is a copy, so make sure whatever you do get comes with the box, cd and manual.

That's a good point. Besides Photoshop, I've also gotten Flash 5 and Visual Basic 6 off ebay, and didn't have any problems. I got everything that was supposed to be included...Naturally, buyer beware!

However, ebay is built on, and works through, trust. If it weren't for that, sites like ebay would have a harder time running!

[evo]

I generally follow the rule in the words of Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/antipiracy/piracy.html):

Estimates reveal that as much as 90% of software sold over Internet auction sites is either bootlegged or gray market. So, if the pricing seems too good to be true, it probably is.


:)

[whackaxe]

also beware of OEM software sites. these are nearly always (and i'm just sayn nearly because i'm not 100% shure) scams. last OEM software site i WHOISd was registered in Azerbaijan. :p (no offense to any Azeris on the forum ;))

[JamieR]

yeh - I heard of a site a while back which was offering backups of software for something like $10.00 a time. Looked kinda dodgy and illegal so I steered clear :p