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Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3) Pricing and Upgrades
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Oh please, all of you, stop with this. These apps are aimed at pros, not dabblers and hobbyists and are priced accordingly. GIMP is no match for Photoshop, CMYK is not the be-all of pro features.
We'll be buying because we have work to do. So if you're making money with this stuff, then the price is a drop in the ocean... even as a freelancer, I could pay for the Design Premium suite with the payment from just one job.
Welcome to the "Got Screwed by Adobe" Club.
I picked up an Adobe Bundle a couple of years ago. I have 5 Adobe Apps ... Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Imageready, Acrobat ... its everything in "Design Standard" except the bundle's name.
When it came time for me to upgrade, I discovered that Adobe dumped that Bundle name, which orphaned my ability to pick up "Bundled" upgrades.
So here I sit with 5 of their products, yet I'm not eligible for any of their current Bundle upgrades because of how they redefined their bundles a couple of years ago. My options are:
$900 if I upgrade through the 'Design Std' Bundle,
$760 if I upgraded my Apps individually,
$400 to upgrade if my old Bundle had the right name.
For the first vs. third, I'm looking at having to pay an extra $500 ($900 vs $400) to effectively "fix" the name of my Bundle.
For the second vs third, I'm paying an extra $360 because Adobe orphaned one of their old bundles.
As complicated as Abobe's upgrade table is, its too bad that they didn't have any provisions for customers who are growing their way up to a bundle to have an incentive to get the bundle ... or some other mechanism to take care of faithful customers who they orphaned by obsoleting Bundle names along the way...
I'd be willing to spend $400 to upgrade everything, but if I'm forced (again) to go piecemeal, I'll continue to do "skip upgrades" and only do incrementally those Apps that I need the upgrade the most. This is precisely why nothing I own right now is at the CS1 revision level...IIRC, it was the first Photoshop upgrade I skipped since somewhere around ...3?
FYI for Adobe: its generally what I find at home that determines if I'm going to buy upgrades for all the computers in the office or not. Lose me at home, and you've lost 6 more in the team pen.
-hh
Fine... so where is the "dabbler & hobbyist" graphic design software for the Mac?
OK, so we got Photoshop Elements and (if you can put up with the clunkiness of X11) GIMP, but if you want to do vector graphics and page layouts, then Illustrator is the only game in town. And it's priced beyone the reach of any non-pro - particularly here in the UK.
There is a gap in the market here, and I am frustrated that no company has yet found it profitable enough to try and fill. All I ask is for a bit of affordable software that lets me do what I could do with Corel Draw 6 on the PC 12 years ago.
SL
PS: Yes I have tried the alternatives. Corel Draw XI has been discontinued and doesn't work on Intel (not even under rosetta). Lineform is a joke. Inkscape is a step in the right direction, but that X11 interface is like swimming thru treacle. I'm open to other suggestions.
I'm not the person to ask but isn't Pages good enough for basic layout? I've never used it. I've seen people create nice posters in PowerPoint of all things... you've got PDF creation right there in OSX.
There's also Ragtime and a number of cheaper page layout apps...
As far as vector work is concerned, then something like this? $US95
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Graphics/EazyDraw.shtml
I've got to be honest, I think many people here think they need more than they need... what 'hobbyist' needs to work with spot colours or have access to many of the features that they don't even know exist?
If you're a genuine student, then there's substantial edu pricing. There's just too much whining from people that don't need this stuff. Most pros aren't going to bat an eyelid; it's part and parcel of their overheads.
There's also Ragtime and a number of cheaper page layout apps...
As far as vector work is concerned, then something like this? $US95
http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Graphics/EazyDraw.shtml
I've got to be honest, I think many people here think they need more than they need... what 'hobbyist' needs to work with spot colours or have access to many of the features that they don't even know exist?
If you're a genuine student, then there's substantial edu pricing. There's just too much whining from people that don't need this stuff. Most pros aren't going to bat an eyelid; it's part and parcel of their overheads.
Hrumph. I feel like I've just been told that I'm not old enough to play football with the bigger boys, and that I should go back to my sandpit.
I'll check out your other suggestions, many thanks. But given that you're thinking along the lines of Pages and PowerPoint, I'm not hopeful.
And I'm not a student and never said I was one.
Clearly, at least 1 more person than you (or Adobe) think.
SL
EDIT: I've just looked at EazyDraw... I'll bear it in mind if/when I have pre-school kids that i want to introduce Graphic Design to. Thanks.
I think that these bundles are ok. With so many products it hard to strike the balance between having so many bundles that people complain (like people have been here) and having so few that people are forsed to buy products that they don't need. I think the breakdown offered by Adobe is alright.
*run behind sofa and pulls cushions over head*
*run behind sofa and pulls cushions over head*
Sure, Agreed, BUT there are many things to pay for in the course of a year: $2,000 color proofer, New Mac Pro, More Drives, more Backup, etc, etc etc.
--- Add to this that we spent close to $1,200 upgrading to CS2 just over a year ago and these prices get steep, especially when you factor in how the upgrade pricing has acutally increase dramatically due to the bundling.
Well, you tell me. Give me an example of a print run of hobbyist work that you do that needs to be done in spot colours, or needing to check the trapping on anything, or work with DCS files? Let alone build indexes or many of the dozens of features that exist in these apps?
When do hobbyists need to work in 16bit LAB space? I'm not a photographer; I don't need Aperture or moan about the price it costs. I don't need Final Cut Pro on my Mac to make me feel important... This comment is not aimed at you but more generally to those who are whinging about software they don't need... anyway, bet you a large chunk of them will be searching for cracked copies within weeks, contributing nothing to Adobe's income at all.
Show me one job that you're going to lose to a competitor because you're running CS2 instead of CS3. We've been on CS1 since release, skipped CS2. Upgrades aren't compulsory.
Well no... none of that lot, well... not normally.
But I do need to be able to draw & manipulate shapes, transform, clone, group, join, intersect and fragment them. Convert text to curves, extrude, blend, gradient fill, import & lay-out photographs, work with guides (at any angle) and grids. I want to use lenses, transparencies and I want to use different nibs for line drawing. I need to lay out text boxes that flow from one to another with some half-decent word-processing ability built-in. I also want to be able to handle multi-page double-sided booklets with millimeter accuracy. And if I want to submit the occasional job for a professional (well, I mainly work for friends and family so I rarely, if ever, get any money) print run, then I want to be able to produce a format that my local print shop won't laugh at. And if that's not enough, I want a program that doesn't automatically assume I want to make a greeting card or a poster and force me to use a restrictive template "wizard"
Those features might sound simple to a pro like you, but you'd be surprised (as was I) how hopeless the "other" drawing apps for the Mac are at meeting those requirements.
Whilst Illustrator certainly has a load of features I'll probably never or rarely use, it is still the only application that supports what I want.
SL
NOT Upgrade Pricing
The "up"s listed next to some products do NOT indicate UPGRADE pricing, they indicate UPSELL ITEMS. These are the items that Amazon will offer to you if you choose a less expensive package -- "Would you like to get the bigger package for only this much?"
The "up"s listed next to some products do NOT indicate UPGRADE pricing, they indicate UPSELL ITEMS. These are the items that Amazon will offer to you if you choose a less expensive package -- "Would you like to get the bigger package for only this much?"
Then buy Illustrator by itself or see if you can find a second-hand copy elsewhere... if you have Illustrator already then I'm sure the upgrade prices on that app won't be too bad. Honestly, it sounds like you're in the wrong job. Come and work for us, we'll pay more than your family.
Yikes how confusing is it when you have to print out two tables and highlight the things you have and then see which thing you are eligible for. I would like to pick and choose the things I want. Based on what I have (PS CS, and Studio MX) my cheapest option is the web premium. Premium is a good name cause that is what you pay at $500. That is still pretty cheap for what I am getting but I feel like I am being punished or forced into a package I would like to tailor to my needs. Interesting that there did not seem to be a design premium upgrade. perhaps one will materialize when tomorrow rolls around.
This isn't accurate... if up upgrade all of the pieces separately on the Premium Design, it would be $150 cheaper... so if you drop one program, you save money against the package. So... not a big Firworks user? Ditch Fireworks and save? I would think the bundle would be a bit larger of a discount over individual pieces... Tomorrow will tell.
i think that for flagship pro software these prices are not really that bad at all; i have seen plenty of similar stature software (top of the line, flagship product) go for 10 times these prices (or more!) so considering Adobe owns the market and can charge whatever they want i do not feel these numbers are unreasonable for the pro user. like BV said, its quite simply the cost of doing business. software is the least expensive thing i will spend money on this year to run my business by far. fortunately for me i get legitimate academic pricing so that certainly helps as well.
Hey Arn...
That's a great idea! Maybe Arn could put up some kind of job posting forum. There are plenty of creative professionals that browse (ehem, live on) website, why not pass the love around to fellow Mac enthusiasts in need of a job?
Honestly, it sounds like you're in the wrong job. Come and work for us, we'll pay more than your family.
That's a great idea! Maybe Arn could put up some kind of job posting forum. There are plenty of creative professionals that browse (ehem, live on) website, why not pass the love around to fellow Mac enthusiasts in need of a job?
You are drastically wrong - on one count. I am a web developer, and there is DEFINITELY something you can use besides Dreamweaver or GoLive - try eclipse. It is quite powerful.
Unfortunately, the others don't have good enough alternatives. I agree with you that GIMP is not good enough.
However, in your mention about pricing, you are again off. Here are a few products that would be on my want list:
Photoshop
Fireworks
InDesign
Illustrator
Acrobat Professional
I would be able to get one package. One. So Adobe Design Bundle, I suppose? I can't really afford two when I'm not going to be using a few of the programs in one of them. But that means that Fireworks is out... Truthfully, I've never used Fireworks, only its predecessor ImageReady, but it has a place in my development environment that is difficult to fill with plain Photoshop. But, apparently, I may have to cut it.
Fair enough
The problem is that Adobe pretty much killed off all of the midrange competition for Illustrator and InDesign, especially on the mac, so their aren't any "lite" or "Element" editions of these for hobbyists, or modest users.
An opportunity Adobe and for other developers to be sure, though in the meantime, my modest needs still require pro applications, and I will put a bit smile on my face and drop the cash necessary, just as I do for my MCAD applications for yearly maintenance.
The problem is that Adobe pretty much killed off all of the midrange competition for Illustrator and InDesign, especially on the mac, so their aren't any "lite" or "Element" editions of these for hobbyists, or modest users.
An opportunity Adobe and for other developers to be sure, though in the meantime, my modest needs still require pro applications, and I will put a bit smile on my face and drop the cash necessary, just as I do for my MCAD applications for yearly maintenance.