Buying Adobe CS6 software Mac (damn pricey)

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mikdog

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Hi guys,

Haven't been around here for ages.

I have a legally store-bought Adobe Photoshop CS3, upgrade to CS4, now I'd like to get Photoshop CS6, AfterEffects CS6 and Illustrator CS6. As you may know, prices are pretty hardcore. Unfortunately there are no collections with just three of these in it. The master collection is about R28k, but it has a lot of stuff I don't necessarily need. Buying all items separately would add up to even more than R28k though.

Sigh. Any ideas where I can find this stuff a little (a lot) cheaper in South Africa? I'm considering their 'Creative Cloud' services where I can rent the stuff, but like a bunch of other things, South Africa hasn't received the ability to use that yet. Yeeargh.

Any suggestions? I also want to upgrade my Toon Boom Animate to Animate Pro and THAT'S also pricey.

Also, I'm not keen on pirating. Many years ago I used to pirate a load of stuff, but then in about 2007 or something I decided to go legit and while its cost me, I feel a lot better about being legit, earning bucks off the stuff I do.

Any suggestions here would be great. Sometimes there are neat upgrade paths from like an old CS2 master collection, to upgrade to CS6 for cheaper.

Thanks.
 
Thanks for the replies, guys. Yep, only seen earlier today that production premium offers what I want. That's around R20k. So, I can either find someone that's selling an old Production Premium CSx and upgrade from there, and I also see I can upgrade from Web Premium and Design Premium for the same price. Really, all the CS6 updated needs, I think, is that license.

So, I'll be keeping a lookout for a cheaper alternative. If I bought an older x premium csx, I may be able to get the CS6 Production Premium for cheaper. I'm also not sure Adobe's digital upgrade would work for South African cheque cards ... man, all the searching has been doing my head in.

Anybody know when the subscription service might arrive in South Africa? That works out to about R300 / month, for ALLES in the CS6 range. And when CS7 etc comes out, theoretically, if pricing stays the same, you'd get access to those as well.

I'd still kind of rather have a hard copy of CS6 though, but anyways... hopefully something turns up. I flipped' bought Photoshop CS3 while I was still at varsity - could have got the educational discount - d'oh! Also see a few people selling the software cheap on gumtree.co.za, but not too sure about that. They claim its OEM software, not that keen.

> Freaksta - thanks, know anywhere where I can get legit CS3?

> Beans 100 - thanks, have tried a few of the alternatives, and have some of them.
 
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How sure are you that Creative Cloud is not available in SA? Cause I can't find anything that states that.

Also don't worry, your Cheque Card will work.

EDIT: Nevermind... found it. That sucks! Looks like a couple of people are asking for it though, so lets hope it comes soon!
 
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I see Adobe's SA head office is on the dimension data campus, I'm actually gonna be there tomorrow, so I'll pop in and see if I can find out when they plan on launching creative cloud here. Will let you know.
 
I'd imagine around September.

If you're a student, though, and you can prove it, you may qualify for around 80% discount on Adobe products. They have some educational criteria you'd need to qualify for though. Good news is, the student edition can be used for commercial work.

If you don't mind waiting for Creative Cloud, you can get the whole Master Collection for about $50 / month.

For a student edition Master Collection (physical product) you can get for about R4k / R5k. But, make sure your course length matches their criteria.
 
Try a shop called the pirate bay. Its download only, but they usually have really good deals. The channels they use to obtain the products aren't the same as normal, but on the plus side you don't give evil adobe any money.
 
I've done two things to bring my media development costs down (and substantially so): (1) migrated to Windows environment, and (2) migrated to Corel Draw (now at X6). With this setup I can do everything at a much lower legit pricepoint. For a business this means more profits and more competitive pricing. Adobe can go fly a kite. Their business model/practices encourages piracy like few others.
 
On a more serious note, why the need to upgrade any way? What new features in cs6 can you not live without? As far as im concerned, not much has changed in the way of image editing since cs2.
 
The Photoshop engine seems to have been improved, for me at least. I have a much more powerful computer now than I used to (iMac i7 3.4Ghz with 16gb memory and SSD drive) and I think the latest software makes better use of the hyper threading. Tools are faster, more 'fluid', wacom pen input feels good ... so while I do see what you mean (one of South Africa's most notorious cartoonists uses Photoshop 6 or something, that was one or two revisions before the CS series and it does what he wants it to) someone also told me to not neglect my tools. I've been meaning to get After Effects and Illustrator too, but the cost has been prohibitive. So on my education course I found out I was eligible for a student discount. Need to send proof to Adobe. Anyways, now I have CS6. On the plus side, and its a major plus, CS6 allows the student edition to be used for commercial purposes so that's good. I use Photoshop pretty much every day, its how I make my living. I used to pirate like a ninja, but, at some point this Canadian animation businessman guy told us a story about how he was about to do a deal with a SA animation company and he asked to see their software licenses. They laughed and said they used pirated software just like everyone else. So the Canadian dude got up and left the meeting. He couldn't take these guys seriously. It got me thinking, and now ALL my software is 100% legit. There may be a license I share with my brother on some instances, but its original software. Has cost me a pretty penny, but I feel WAAAY better at charging high prices for what I do, also all my music believe it or not is ALSO legit. I feel like more than a law thing its a karma thing. It really irks me if I don't get something legit. Almost immediately after stopping piracy, my life improved and I got kiff jobs. /rant
 
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mikdog said:
The Photoshop engine seems to have been improved, for me at least. I have a much more powerful computer now than I used to (iMac i7 3.4Ghz with 16gb memory and SSD drive) and I think the latest software makes better use of the hyper threading. Tools are faster, more 'fluid', wacom pen input feels good ... so while I do see what you mean (one of South Africa's most notorious cartoonists uses Photoshop 6 or something, that was one or two revisions before the CS series and it does what he wants it to) someone also told me to not neglect my tools. I've been meaning to get After Effects and Illustrator too, but the cost has been prohibitive. So on my education course I found out I was eligible for a student discount. Need to send proof to Adobe. Anyways, now I have CS6. On the plus side, and its a major plus, CS6 allows the student edition to be used for commercial purposes so that's good. I use Photoshop pretty much every day, its how I make my living. I used to pirate like a ninja, but, at some point this Canadian animation businessman guy told us a story about how he was about to do a deal with a SA animation company and he asked to see their software licenses. They laughed and said they used pirated software just like everyone else. So the Canadian dude got up and left the meeting. He couldn't take these guys seriously. It got me thinking, and now ALL my software is 100% legit. There may be a license I share with my brother on some instances, but its original software. Has cost me a pretty penny, but I feel WAAAY better at charging high prices for what I do, also all my music believe it or not is ALSO legit. I feel like more than a law thing its a karma thing. It really irks me if I don't get something legit. Almost immediately after stopping piracy, my life improved and I got kiff jobs. /rant
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In a perfect world I would follow suite, but it irks me when companies like adobe charge TWICE the amount here in SA or europe for their package, then they do in USA. And why does it cost more to buy them separately than the whole package? Money hungry pigs imo. So do keep that in mind, although apparently illegal as well, it is much cheaper to buy your software in the US and bring it back here.
 
crysis said:
In a perfect world I would follow suite, but it irks me when companies like adobe charge TWICE the amount here in SA or europe for their package, then they do in USA. And why does it cost more to buy them separately than the whole package? Money hungry pigs imo. So do keep that in mind, although apparently illegal as well, it is much cheaper to buy your software in the US and bring it back here.
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I hear you. Thing is, they make the software and they can do as they like, they set the rules. I suppose nobody HAS to buy it, but their stuff is pretty good. I imagine they're probably going to start pushing Creative Cloud as the preferred distribution method (almost zero costs for them on physical packaging then). That'll be cheaper for the user too. Still want to learn a bunch of their stuff. Not sure I mentioned this - I'm also signed up for a monthly sub at DigitalTutors.com. Mostly to learn 3d, but I see they cover a range of graphics and video apps. Really good for learning, goes through stuff step-by-step. I'd recommend it to anybody wanting to brush up on stuff. Still want to get to the After Effects and Illustrator lessons.

Anyways. I'd like it to be cheaper. I bought a really great admin app (lets me make nice invoices, keeps track of time for various things, lets me save clients, can add tax rate if I want it to etc...) called ProfitTrain for Mac. Cost me like $30 or something. Nice. Happy to pay that amount and I use it frequently.

Didn't know about the USA thing.

I used to use the money-hungry-pigs argument for downloading illegal music and software too until I realized that its not a basic commodity and more of a luxury - I don't HAVE to have loads of music and software, and its my choice to buy it or not.

What I DON'T like is when companies try and hurt their paying customers more than pirates. Example - DRM. What a ballsup. In this situation, pirates get a much better end experience than legitimate customers. I've got ToonBoom Storyboard Pro that needs a physical dongle to be plugged in to the computer to work. WHAAATTT? I bought this software, and now need to use up a USB slot on my laptop so I can run bought software, whereas someone who pirated the software doesn't need anything at all? GFY.
 
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mikdog said:
What I DON'T like is when companies try and hurt their paying customers more than pirates. Example - DRM. What a ballsup. In this situation, pirates get a much better end experience than legitimate customers. I've got ToonBoom Storyboard Pro that needs a physical dongle to be plugged in to the computer to work. WHAAATTT? I bought this software, and now need to use up a USB slot on my laptop so I can run bought software, whereas someone who pirated the software doesn't need anything at all? GFY.
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So install the pirated version. You did pay for the original license.
 
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