sweasel.com

Two days left on my Photoshop CS5 trial. It’s got some nice features, but you know what? It’s totally not worth $1,000. I wouldn’t pay that if I had it.

I’m probably going to wipe it out and go back to my last legal version, which is CS. My only regret — I use the warp function a lot, and that didn’t appear until CS2.

But older versions of P’shop — if you can find them at all — aren’t much cheaper than the latest and greatest. IF you can be sure you’re buying a legal version with a real serial number.

Hmmm…I think I’ve found a reputable upgrade to CS3 for ~£100. That’s not bad…

Or you could reconsider what I had told you before. I still am willing to get that copy of whatever it was that appears to be upgradeable to CS5 for what you thought back then was reasonable…

Evenin’ All,

GIMP has warp.
(Man, I can’t believe you said something that stupid.)
Yeah, I know, the time and pain of switching from PS to GIMP costs a lot more than 100 ewww-units. Even if GIMP really does do all the same stuff, about which I have no clue, not having used PS since ’03 or so.

Been messing with Blender, had just got to the point with 2.49 where I could perform four, maybe even five operations before turning the scene to complete junk, then decided to install 2.5.
Totally new layout, so back to spending more time looking for the right button than drawing. FML.

It looks like Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 OEM is even cheaper now:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120668236962#vi-content
if that is upgradable to CS5…

Stoatie, do you ever keep track of STEAMPUNK comics? Apparently, they have a Sarah Palin issue out that is causing QUITE a stir….

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/01/20/steampunk-palin-comic/

Heh. I saw that, Scoob. Robama was a nice touch.

I’ve tried and tried to get into Gimp. I just can’t do it. My frustration level wells to uncomfortable levels. I must’ve logged thousands of hours with Photoshop and I’ve completely internalized the controls.

In fact, that’s one of my big complaints with Adobe. I’ve got the keyboard shortcuts in my DNA – the ones from 20 years ago. Every new edition, they’ll change one or more (and I have to change them back).

In CS5, it’s the R command. Used to invoke the Blur tool, now it rotates the drawing. Which, by the way, P’shop took an awfully long time to get around to including.

Gotta be careful with stuff off eBay, Mark (ha! You don’t say?). A lot of the software floating out there is either the student version or the American version or both.

When you go to enter the serial number, it picks up your IP and/or asks for proof you’re a student.

DirectDeals seems to be an honorable retailer per their ratings, and they claim it is indeed full OEM. I thought your current Photoshop was Native American, so hopefully THAT wouldn’t be an issue. And for under $15, I’m willing to take a chance and donate it to you if you want to try. The idea is I would buy it, copy the DVD to my hard drive, and then give you an IP address to download it (if we can work that out) and send you whatever software key comes with it. You let me know when you’ve got it, and I’ll destroy the DVD and wipe the stuff from my hard drive so you have legal software. After that, you’re on your own. I am assuming that Photoshop Elements doesn’t fall under ITAR or any of those other export control laws…

By the way, with Microsoft I understand that one Community College course makes you a student. Not sure about Adobe and others, of course…

Nope, my current CS is British. Uncle B had a copy Adobe gave him for review. I managed to load it up and register it this afternoon, so that’s okay.

CS5 has three main advantages: refined edge selection, content-aware fills and repairs, and the ability to rotate the canvas. The first two are nice but not infallible and the rotate canvas thing (which should have been there for years) can be done in other ways. A thousand bucks? I think not.

Anyhoo, £100 will get me to a legal Limey version of CS3, which (I assume) will have an upgrade path to CS6 when it comes out. That’ll do me, and it’s all kosher.

You know when CS came out, incidentally? 2007. No wonder I had it in my head that my version wasn’t that old. So that’s…what? Five versions in four years? If my math is right (and it probably isn’t), keeping up to date would cost, like, £4 a week.

Good enough, then. Enjoy!

Oh, and thanks very much for the offer, Mark. I really do appreciate it.

Oh, and I’m wrong (if Wikipedia is right) – CS came out in 2003.

Time between Photoshop releases (in months) beginning with 6: 18, 19, 22, 24, 14, 18.

That’s 115/6 = 19 months between releases, average. So if CS5 was released in April 2010, CS6 maybe…October 2011?

Just in time for Sandy Claws.

One can usually trust the Wiki (or the Snopes) if what you’re looking for is neither political nor religious. Of course, Photoshop IS a religion for some folks, I guess…
}:-]

Weasel, I do understand being bound to keybindings…

Still running KDE 3 here, version 4 is just too big a change, too much stuff that can’t be set back to roughly 3.x settings. Guess I’ll eventually wind up either the last mammal running it or ripping into the v4 code to make shit stop doing things I don’t want.
Also: Get off my lawn!

At least you have some path to a working version of p-shop without forking over a Queen’s ransom.

For Rodent:
Hopefully you ARE aware of the Trinity project:
http://apt.pearsoncomputing.net/
which is keeping KDE 3 current…

Photoshop a religion, eh? 😉

I think I may know a high priestess….

I am passionate about that, Rodent. Any program you’re going to use a lot, you MUST memorize the keyboard shortcuts. Not all of them — that would be a waste of braincells — but the ones you use most. The goal is to master them so completely that you don’t have to think about the program you’re working with, just the thing you’re working on. It makes a HUGE difference in productivity. And, frankly, how much I enjoy my work.

And no, I’m not even a little bit embarrassed to be passionate about keyboard shortcuts.

Like that most famous of the Microsoft shortcuts, eh?

And UB, she CAN’T be a high priestess unless she has slaughtered the chicklets and sold your soul for the latest version.

On second thought, it might be smart to not fall asleep tonight…
}:-]

No, no, it’s safe–there are always schismatic sects. . .

I used to have Mathematica on my machine until they started charging $2500 for it. Now they have home edition for $300 and I’m getting back in the game as soon as I can work out how to give them the money from Costa Rica. In case all y’alls don’t know, if Photoshop is cool, Mathematica is like the Fonz to the power one hundred.

I got CS5 off a student dealio. Borderline legit.

Just damn. Jack LaLanne has left us.

I met him once and was privileged to have lunch with him, and found him to be such a kind and gentle man. A sad loss.

I have been using AutoCAD from version 1, after 25+ years I am expertish, but cannot afford even the cheep version. (AutoCAD LT)
Software is out of control

Mark:
Without KDE-Trinity I’d be hand-forcing every install/upgrade as everything else becomes dependent on libs required by 4. KDE4 should have been a fork, not just the next KDE release.

Weasel:
Don’t you wish “they” could just do the real improvements, without having to tweak things for no good reason?
A while back IBM had a tv ad about a kid designing spiffy logos, the boss walks up behind and suggests actually doing something that would help build a useful website, the kid’s clueless. Still a classic.
I am so tired of change just for the sake of change, or just because “they” have to pay those seats to do something, no matter good or bad.
“Hey, we’ve got 500 PHP exspurts on payroll, let’s overhaul the whole site again today!”

In related “get off my lawn” news: Jack LaLanne passed away, only 96 years young.

Vmaximus —

Highly recommended: IntelliCAD. By no means free, but much less expensive, and you can use your old familiar AutoCAD reflexes almost freely — while swapping back and forth with newer point-and-click style commands. The file format it uses works with the “real thing”; changing over isn’t quite seamless, but close enough to be practical.

There are also modules developed by consortium members for various specialties — who knew elevator design needed a whole suite? — of differing quality but all well worth checking out.

Regards,
Ric

Did anybody have Jack LaLane in the Dead Pool?

If not, I call dibs.