Cost effective photoshop

I have been looking at the cost of photoshop and for me it seems prohibitively expensive. Is there a way to make a more cost effective purchase. For example Office 2003 is now free: are there older versions of PS that are available cheaper. Is OEM copies an option?

All help gratefully recieved.

Bob

Hi Bob,

The short answer is no!

You can buy older versions of PS as second hand, but you run the risk of it being dodgy.

I know it isn't in the scope of your original question, but if you are looking at a package for photo editing, then I would suggest downloading and experimenting with the free trial of Lightroom 4. This does almost all most photographer want and is considerably more cost effective.

If you are looking more at a graphic design package, perhaps Photoshop Elements?

Adam

An educational licence may be an option...

Have you considered the GIMP? It's free, open source, cross-platform, does many of the things that Photoshop does, and best of all, it's free! Did I mention that it's free?

Downsides include a bit of a learning curve to get used to a different interface than Adobe's, and less regular updates. Upsides include updates to the latest versions, forever, for no money.

The Gimp is a excellent and very powerful piece of software with a unusual gui.

Adobe Lightroom may have enough editing tools for your needs and it cost about 150$

Chris

If you have no photoshop experience, I would go with Elements as you can get it fir < $99USD. As time goes by, you may want to graduate to PS. As an Elements user, Adobe would run a $299 upgrade option from elements to PS a couple of times a year. That is when I made ge move.

Another option would be to look at Adobe prescription option. Ypu can get PS by it self for $20/month

Kirk

You might try pixelmator. Not photoshop yet but pretty nice. I too though vote for LR

Bill