Photoshop question

[gsgroff]

I'm leaving (running, jumping and screaming) from the PC world and getting a new iMac very soon. I just recovered from my latest PC mess and swore "never again"!

I have been using Photoshop 5.5 for a long time and it does all that I need. I can't see shelling out $600-$700 for the latest Photoshop and have noticed PS 5.5 for Mac available on Amazon. Would that install and run OK on my soon-to-be new iMac?

Thanks,
Gordon

 

[Aussie Gent]

If you have a valid license for your PC then you can get it transferred over to the Mac...that's what I did. Unsure if you need to have latest version or not though.

 

[phoenixsan]

If.....

the version of PS you want to use is a Classic Mac or PowerPC version, that will not run in a new and shiny Mac (Intel CPU). PS 5.5 seems to me from about 1999-2000. Or are you saying PS CS 5.5?

 

[Renzatic]

One thing you can do is hop on over to the Adobe Creative Cloud and look at their one application only plans.

If you want just Photoshop, you can grab it for $20 a month for a full year subscription. PS Extended Edition by itself costs $400, so it'd take you a tad over three years of subscribing to it before you'd catch up to the price of a full copy.

The up side? You get it now for cheap, and all upgrades are free so long as you're subscribed. When CS7 comes out, you get access to it immediately without any extra cost (at least I think. Adobe's the king of gouging people every chance they get).

The down side? Some people are understandably weary of renting software. It's not yours to own.

If you want cheapish PS, it's a good option to consider.

 

[gsgroff]

the version of PS you want to use is a Classic Mac or PowerPC version, that will not run in a new and shiny Mac (Intel CPU). PS 5.5 seems to me from about 1999-2000. Or are you saying PS CS 5.5?

Yup. I bought the full version of 5.5 back in '99. I suppose that makes me a dinosaur. The $500 bucks then really griped me, but I shelled it out. I can't justify it now, since my commercial aspirations have petered out, but I have a lot of material created with it and I don't want to lose the ability to go back to it. I still do the occaisional CD covers/inserts/discfaces for vanity projects for folks. It's also really handy for personal stuff.

Sad to hear I can't get the old 5.5 to load up to a new iMac. Sigh.

Thanks for the answer, Phoenix!

Gordon

----------

One thing you can do is hop on over to the Adobe Creative Cloud and look at their one application only plans.

If you want just Photoshop, you can grab it for $20 a month for a full year subscription. PS Extended Edition by itself costs $400, so it'd take you a tad over three years of subscribing to it before you'd catch up to the price of a full copy.

The up side? You get it now for cheap, and all upgrades are free so long as you're subscribed. When CS7 comes out, you get access to it immediately without any extra cost (at least I think. Adobe's the king of gouging people every chance they get).

The down side? Some people are understandably weary of renting software. It's not yours to own.

If you want cheapish PS, it's a good option to consider.

Wow! Never heard of that. I'm not sure what would roil my Mennonite blood worse. $20/month for something I may only use a few times a year or shelling out over $600 now.....

You mention Extended Edition for $400? I really don't know much about the Photoshop world or the different flavors of it. I need something that will read/edit .psd with all the layers and stuff that the old 5.5 had. I have assumed that Elements won't. Do you know what flavor of PS I need?

I guess I should head over to adobe (shudder) and try to learn a bit more.

Thanks for the cloud suggestion, Renzatic.

Gordon

 

[zepman]

Maybe you don't need Photoshop. Perhaps Pixelmator is enough for your needs. It can open .psd-files and have layers. It's way cheaper than Photoshop at $15.

 

[Renzatic]

Wow! Never heard of that. I'm not sure what would roil my Mennonite blood worse. $20/month for something I may only use a few times a year or shelling out over $600 now.....

It's a fairly recent thing. Thing is, you might not need to plunk down the cash for a full blown copy of Photoshop. PS is THE best app for heavy photo manipulation. Nothing else comes close to it on the high end.

...but if you're not doing really heavy editing, there are tons of options that cover the light-middle ground just as well as PS for far cheaper. Like Zepmap said above, Pixelmator is a good option. It'll set you back $15, and likely do everything you want to do. You can also get GIMP for the low low price of $0. If most of what you do is touch up photos and tweak the colors a bit, either one of these will be perfect for you.

It all depends on what you're wanting to do.

You mention Extended Edition for $400? I really don't know much about the Photoshop world or the different flavors of it. I need something that will read/edit .psd with all the layers and stuff that the old 5.5 had. I have assumed that Elements won't. Do you know what flavor of PS I need?

Standard deals with everything photo related, and (I think) Extended mostly deals with 3D workflows. On a guess, I'm thinking you'll probably only need standard if you go the PS route, instead of hitting up one of the cheaper options.

As for opening old .psd files, I'm not even sure the more recent versions of PS can open up an old 5.5 file without guffing it up it in some way. Pixelmator and GIMP both can open .psd files, but I know from personal experience that GIMP can do weird things to them, since the layer blends and other effects aren't a 100% perfect match across both apps.

The good news is they're both so cheap/free you can try them out without losing much. If either one of them are able to open your old files without any problems, or at most, require a few tweaks to get them back to looking how you want, then you're good to go.

 

[CrickettGrrrl]

--Everything Zepman & Renzatic said. Although Pixelmator is currently $15, you can download a free trial of version 2.1.4 from their website: http://www.pixelmator.com/

They are on the threshold of releasing version 2.2 with layer effects and better vector shapes tools, hopefully this month. (Hopefully this week, dammit. )

When I open layered PSD files (from PPC CS2) I do lose some layer effects --like drop shadows, some pattern fills, but it's not difficult to redo them in Pixelmator. (There IS a Quartz filter for drop shadows, btw, the other way isn't that big a deal either.) And I use iDraw, a vector program for Macs, for text on a path, etc., and can drag those as PNG or TIFF files into Pixelmator.

-----------------------------

Just wanted to add something that I learned while playing around with some Ps files today, if you click layers with styles, then Menu/Layer/Layer Style/Create Layers for each, you can save the "exploded" layers .psd version and drag it into Pixelmator and NOT lose the layer styles. Inner glow, drop shadows, etc., will be there.

 

[James_C]

Your other option is to continue to use your Windows version of Photoshop. You can either use Bootcamp to create a separate partition on your hard drive and boot into Windows. I don't like this very much, because you have to keep rebooting in and out of Mac OS X and Windows. Therefore I use a Virtual Machine (VM) to run Windows Apps on my Mac. The two popular options are Parallels and VMFusion. I use Parallels myself and is currently available in a bundle deal for $49.

Note that Bootcamp and a VM will also need a full copy of Windows. A VM is a little bit more flexible with the age of your copy of Windows though.

That having being said - If you are a light Photoshop user, I suggest you give Pixelmator a try, as others have suggested.

 

[fig]

Thirded or fourthed or whatever on Pixelmator, it's a great little app and very capable for most folks.

And I get not wanting to shell out a lot of cash for software but seriously...if you last bought in '99 I think you've gotten your money's worth out of that license You might be able to find a version of CS2 or CS3 on eBay/Amazon for about half price, or possibly get an educational license.

 

[Jessica Lares]

Yup. I bought the full version of 5.5 back in '99. I suppose that makes me a dinosaur. The $500 bucks then really griped me, but I shelled it out. I can't justify it now, since my commercial aspirations have petered out, but I have a lot of material created with it and I don't want to lose the ability to go back to it. I still do the occaisional CD covers/inserts/discfaces for vanity projects for folks. It's also really handy for personal stuff.

Sad to hear I can't get the old 5.5 to load up to a new iMac. Sigh.

Thanks for the answer, Phoenix!

Gordon

----------



Wow! Never heard of that. I'm not sure what would roil my Mennonite blood worse. $20/month for something I may only use a few times a year or shelling out over $600 now.....

You mention Extended Edition for $400? I really don't know much about the Photoshop world or the different flavors of it. I need something that will read/edit .psd with all the layers and stuff that the old 5.5 had. I have assumed that Elements won't. Do you know what flavor of PS I need?

I guess I should head over to adobe (shudder) and try to learn a bit more.

Thanks for the cloud suggestion, Renzatic.

Gordon

You can run it in WINE:

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=86

Wineskin is a pretty good wrapper. I run Windows 3.1 software with it on Mountain Lion.

http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/tiki-index.php

 

[gsgroff]

Thanks for all the replies! I'll definitely try Pixelmator. If that works, I'll be golden. Just trying to line up answers to my questions before I pull the trigger on the iMac.

No Doze partitions for me. I intend to relegate all PC/Windows/Microsoft to the scrap pile of my tech history - right next to my Kaypro and 5 1/4" floppies. Yeah, I'm that old and yeah, I'm that fed up. Time for a clean sweep and new beginnings. Who knows, I may even get an iPad or iPhone someday.

Appreciate the help, Gang!

Gordon

 

[gsgroff]

I pulled the trigger yesterday after my PC blue-screened. Good riddance!

Anyway, like I said, I'll definitely try pixelmator. At the apple store, the gal showed me where Adobe has released SC2 for free. I may take a swing at that too.

Thanks again,

Gordon

 

[James_C]

I pulled the trigger yesterday after my PC blue-screened. Good riddance!

Anyway, like I said, I'll definitely try pixelmator. At the apple store, the gal showed me where Adobe has released SC2 for free. I may take a swing at that too.

Thanks again,

Gordon

Unfortunately the SC2 link for Mac will not work as that is an old version of photoshop written for PowerPC Macs, and will not run under current versions of OS X.

 

[CrickettGrrrl]

Yes, the last OS X version which will run CS2 (using Rosetta) is Snow Leopard 10.6. As mentioned above, CS2 can run as a Windows version in a Win virtual machine, although I haven't tried that personally since I was able to keep a Snow Leopard partition. It's definitely an option if you have to get into your older files. CS2 has Photoshop version 9 which is a step up from 5 which you have been using.

You don't have to choose just one over the other for your iMac. It'd be like having only one screwdriver. Software like Pixelmator and iDraw have smaller footprints on your HDD than Adobe, so it wouldn't be like you're bogging your iMac down with a whole herd of hippopotamus, ---just one.

 

[gsgroff]

Unfortunately the SC2 link for Mac will not work as that is an old version of photoshop written for PowerPC Macs, and will not run under current versions of OS X.

Thanks James. And Cricketgirrl. I guess I've gotta learn Apple Speak (Snow Leapard?) and recognize the different operating systems. Huh. And here I thought All Apple played nice together Always. Now that I have the iMac, and know there are solutions availble, I'm a happy guy and not so much in a furious rush to solve it all at once.

Appreciate the input.

Gordon

 

[CrickettGrrrl]

Congratulations on your brand new iMac! As for Snow Leopard, it's in the rear-view window now for 2012 models anyway, 2 versions back from Mountain Lion. Enjoy!

 

[gsgroff]

Pixelmator Issues

I got Pixelmator. Very cool. Was able to open up a locket graphic I had recently created (anniversary gift, y'know) with 4 teeny pictures all fit into a scan of the locket. Fun project. All the layers there, interface easy to understand coming from Photoshop. But.....

I can't open any of my larger files that I use every year for our annual Christmas cards. They have over a dozen photos in them, along with some text and graphic elements. Every time I try to open one, Pixelmator bombs out. I found one that I can open from 2002, but none of the intervening years will open. They all shut down and send an error to Apple. Huh. Go figure.

More importantly, all of the CD graphics I created for our own projects and others do the same. Pixelator just closes as soon as I try to open them. I will understand if a $15 program is just not robust enough, but if there are any tips you can give to get it to work, I'd appreciate it.

Any tricks or help out there? I REALLY don't want to spend $600-$700 for Photoshop!

Thanks,
Gordon

 

[Renzatic]

Have you tried out GIMP yet? I've opened up some fairly complicated .psd files with it before.

...they looked weird, but they opened.

 

[thekev]

More importantly, all of the CD graphics I created for our own projects and others do the same. Pixelator just closes as soon as I try to open them. I will understand if a $15 program is just not robust enough, but if there are any tips you can give to get it to work, I'd appreciate it.

Any tricks or help out there? I REALLY don't want to spend $600-$700 for Photoshop!

Thanks,
Gordon

It depends on the format. You can always download a trial of photoshop to see if it opens things to your requirements, then do a layers to files script or something of that sort to ensure it works. I think Pixelmator might still lack cmyk support. I'm not sure what it can do with multichannel. I would mention that PSDs from version 5.5 may not open correctly on new versions of PS. Even that maximize compatibility checkbox just embeds a flattened comp version in case newer software can't read the layer data.


You really need to be much more specific regarding what is included in these files. This means fonts, color space types (RGB, cmyk, etc), layer data, and whatever else. Right now all you have indicated is that these were last saved on 5.5. This doesn't help. It's not just Pixelmator. Sometimes photoshop breaks compatibility between versions when it comes to things like layer data, and some of the adjustment layers have definitely changed in terms of algorithms used. That version is ancient and was abandoned by its developers long ago. Going forward I might suggest something like Gimp or Pixelmator assuming that they provide the necessary features. Both could be considered more modern than version 5.5 of photoshop, so your hangups there are really unfounded.

 

[gsgroff]

Thanks for the tips, thekev. I'm thinking I may have created them in CMYK and that may be why they don't load. I think I vaguely recall having to use that for the commercial printers some of our CD projects went to, but that was way back in 1999, so I'm not sure. I probably kept using CMYK since I really don't know the difference. That's what you get when you have amatuers using pro tools. Anyway, the thing to do is to see if I can get my old PC to fire up one more time and open up in there and check and convert to RGB and try Pixelmator again.

Gordon