Adobe Giving Away CS2

[GogglesPizanno]

So Adobe has decided to give away CS2 for free.
To those that are still into skinning and dont have photoshop, this is your chance.
http://gizmodo.com/5973730/grab-photoshop-and-cs2-for-absolutely-free-right-here

Adobe's servers are getting hammered at the moment, but this page has the links to the download files directly.
http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/87488/adobe-adobe-creative-suite-cs2-standard-pc-or-mac-digital-download

[deano_ue]

sweet i have cs4 but not illustrator and Premiere, may try and grab that

[Podmark]

That's pretty awesome. I'll have to let some friends know.

[Epimethee]

Sadly the deal was – without surprise – so popular that it ended after a few hours. Still a pretty awesome gesture!

[hoss20]

I'm currently downloading from here: http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html?PID=4485850

The page is located on the Adobe site and contains the serials along with the .exe files.
I don't know if I'll stumble at the installation or activation point, but I'll see how it goes once the download is finished.

[Epimethee]

Hoss, you rock.

[Deaths Jester]

And now it's completely down...rrrrr!

[Tomato]

*looks up from his work*

Oh, are you guys mad about not getting free Photoshop? K. I'll be over here using Paint Shop Pro, because Photoshop is an overrated piece of bloatware that costs twice as much as it's worth.

[hoss20]

And now it's completely down...rrrrr!

I started my last couple of downloads this morning before I went to work. I came home for a second at lunch to see I only had about 45 minutes left on my last download (stop laughing, I know my connection speed is horrible). After seeing your post DJ, I cheaked the page and it's still up. I don't know if it's a traffic issue. I didn't try to download anything else to see if any notification popped up then. Hopefully, things are back up. My download isn't stalled, by the way. It's still progressing.

[murs47]

*looks up from his work*

Oh, are you guys mad about not getting free Photoshop? K. I'll be over here using Paint Shop Pro, because Photoshop is an overrated piece of bloatware that costs twice as much as it's worth.

*looks up from his work*

*eye rolls*

*looks back down at his work*

[Reepicheep]

*looks up from his work*

Oh, are you guys mad about not getting free Photoshop? K. I'll be over here using Paint Shop Pro, because Photoshop is an overrated piece of bloatware that costs twice as much as it's worth.

*looks up from his work*

*Gets paid tonnes of money for using photoshop*

*looks down at his work*

[Epimethee]

*looks up from his work*

Oh, are you guys mad about not getting free Photoshop? K. I'll be over here using Paint Shop Pro, because Photoshop is an overrated piece of bloatware that costs twice as much as it's worth.

Bloated? Yes. Overpriced? It's a pro tool optimized for print jobs (and I'm speaking from experience) – for some freelance jobs, it can pay for itself in less than a day's work. Overrated? PSP might well be better for your needs, but methinks you're not Adobe's target audience for this product.

[Tomato]

I'm gonna take a moment and clarify my position for people because it seems to be derailing this thread anyway.

Spoiler

Let me be very clear from the outset: I do not hate photoshop, nor do I have anything against people who use it. It's a solid image editing program, even if it doesn't necessarily fit my style of editing.

That said, there are 3 major problems I have with Photoshop that have always been dealbreakers for me personally. The first is that it loads a massive ammount of resources that it doesn't need. From the time I click the "Paint Shop Pro" icon on my computer to the time it has fully loaded takes about 10-12 seconds. Adobe Illustrator, which is the only comparable Adobe program I have installed right now, takes over 30-35 seconds. Yeah that's fine for some people, but for me it's just annoying that it uses so much more in terms of resources when I don't even use them.

Second is the price. Yeah, we live in a time when, if I wanted, I can go out and find a crack online for either program and not pay a cent. But if you're looking to legitimately buy Photoshop, that's about a $1000 dollars you've just blown for the Extended edition. Compare that to Paint Shop Pro, which is currently less than $100.

The final one, and it's what irritates me about this thread, is that there's this inherent belief that Photoshop is the ONLY image program. That Adobe can get away with charging thousands of dollars for it's product, and people will buy it because nothing else could possibly be the same as their beloved program. That Adobe giving away a free version of a CS2, when they are currently up to CS6, is some blessing of the gods the likes of which we've never seen.

So while I don't have issues with people using photoshop (it's the industry standard, and most of my issues with actually USING it are based on the fact that I learned on Paint Shop Pro instead) I do think this entire thing has received WAY more publicity than it deserves. And watching people I know crawl over each other for a copy is just ridiculous.

[Podmark]

Well for what it's worth I'd download a legit free Paint Shop Pro in a second too. I'd be more than happy to try that out.
And I like free stuff.

[Reepicheep]

I agree with Epimethee here. I tried to learn to skin on PSP, and I see the benefits of it. For starters, things are WAY more organised on it. I'm still finding tools in dark, dusty corners of photoshop. It may have a few things going for it in terms of digital photo editing or digital painting.

But I work on quite high-tech architectural stuff, presentation boards and presentation visuals. Its either not particularly interesting for the folks here, or I'm jut not allowed to display them online. (Unless you wanna play Where's Keanu Reeves. Inside joke is to try and get Keanu Reeves into all your visuals somewhere. This week I'm gonna need to photoshop his face onto Gandalf or something for a fantasy setting. Seriously, he's in my portfolio about twenty times)

But anyway, I couldn't possibly do the things I do on Photoshop on Paint Shop Pro. Or certainly not PSP8, the version I have. besides, as Epimethee said, its already paid for itself.

[Tomato]

I agree with Epimethee here. I tried to learn to skin on PSP, and I see the benefits of it. For starters, things are WAY more organised on it. I'm still finding tools in dark, dusty corners of photoshop. It may have a few things going for it in terms of digital photo editing or digital painting.

But I work on quite high-tech architectural stuff, presentation boards and presentation visuals. Its either not particularly interesting for the folks here, or I'm jut not allowed to display them online. (Unless you wanna play Where's Keanu Reeves. Inside joke is to try and get Keanu Reeves into all your visuals somewhere. This week I'm gonna need to photoshop his face onto Gandalf or something for a fantasy setting. Seriously, he's in my portfolio about twenty times)

But anyway, I couldn't possibly do the things I do on Photoshop on Paint Shop Pro. Or certainly not PSP8, the version I have. besides, as Epimethee said, its already paid for itself.

Old version of PSP is old. I don't think the interface is even the same anymore, since they overhauled it for PSP X (I had to basically relearn how to use that one, I was not a happy mato).

But regardless, the people who need/have use for the additional tools and extras Photoshop has over PSP also don't have any use for a version of Photoshop that's almost 8 years old now. To put that in perspective for people, Windows Vista came out two years AFTER CS2.

[GogglesPizanno]

Hey man I was just letting people know that if they couldn't afford a copy or wanted one, adobe was offering it.
As far as Im concerned, use whatever you want and whatever works for ya.

The beauty of this, was that it wasn't just Photoshop, it was illustrator, premier, acrobat and all the other stuff that came with the the suite that don't normally have a lot of low cost alternatives.

And frankly I think CS2 is still totally valid for the non power user/hobbyist. It was last version in my mind, where the features vs. bloat was still on the feature side. The current versions do a lot of crazy cool things that are pretty intensive and niche but that I have a hard time rationalizing the performance hit. On my machines, I tend to install either CS2 or 3... anything beyond is not worth it to me for the limited stuff that I have to use it for.

[Tomato]

*shrug* I was being over-sensitive, but I was also seeing promotions for this 3 other websites at the same time as it was posted here. All I could think was "Really? All this hype for 8 year old software?"

I totally understand what you mean about older versions of programs having less junk though. I won't even use the most recent versions of Word, If I'm on a new computer I either find an old version in our family's disk cases or download Open Office.

[Deaths Jester]

I only use Photoshop for colour correction and I was only interested in the free CS2 becuase I'm still running Photoshop 7, otherwise I stick to my Painter 11...sooo much happier with that prog....makes everything all warm and furry!

[Cyber Burn]

I gotta admit, I wouldn't have minded trying a new art program. And a free one would have been good too.