I saw the other two threads about the entire Adobe suite for CS being given away for free. This appears to be more recent and specific news not related to that story from January. It isn’t the entire suite, it is specifically Adobe Photoshop CS2. This seems to be completely free and clear, with the exception of registering an Adobe Account to track your license.
http://gizmodo.com/5973730/grab-photoshop-and-cs2-for-absolutely-free-right-here
Thanks for the heads up.
Gives me keys for the entire suite as far as I can see.
This is the message that pops up beforehand and needs to be agreed with:
but the link you posted is from january? how is it different from the story in january?
This is the same as before. It is only for legitimate owners of the CS2 software, which I’m not. The only Adobe software I owne is Photoshop and Acrobat X Pro.
The thing is, even if they were free I wouldn’t use them. The software is as stated, old, buggy and not supported any more.
$29.99 a month for a Creative Cloud subscription, that’s the entire Adobe stack. Best value for money in software IMO.
Problem with that, is I don’t want to have to subscribe. I’d rather just buy it once, especially when not on a reliable income. That way I personally feel i can save up for stuff, and budget in accordance with other things, rather than not be with the software I need because I couldn’t pay that month.
I know that the above is how we think, but it isn’t rational. If we look at it objectively the subscriptions really aren’t a bad deal at all.
With Aussie pricing I could subscribe for somewhere between 4 and 6 years for the price of purchase. During that time I always have the latest version if I want it, and the money stays in my hands longer (may as well be in your bank account rather than theirs).
Also, you could still save up and set the money aside. The interest you get off it while it sits there will get you more subscription time. 
Right now through Dec 31 - you can subscribe to just photoshop (plus lightroom) for 9.95/mo - it is the same as the 19.95 subscription, but comes with the lightroom addon (not sure if LR matters to game folks or not).
I just did that subscription… I am so not an art guy it isnt funny, but when someone tells me they will charge me 200 bucks for an app icon, 9.95 and a few videos seems worth it to me.
If you had previously installed CS2 back when they had that big oh its not really free, only for existing users, but nevertheless pretty much anyone can install and use it hoohah, then your existing copy will now work without reminding you to register etc. No need to redownload it.
You’re not paying for the Photoshop license, you are paying for the skills to create something visually appealing.
You could buy some cheap wrenches, but that wouldn’t necessarily make you a great plumber.
Agreed. I ha[[en to be in a unique and lucky situation where I have people around me willing to tach me the mechanical stuff (logo, icons, etc) - as for “real art” - i’ll keep on buying it.
Looking at it objectively I could budget and purchase the full cost price and then keep using it until windows eventually breaks it (unlikely). With subscriptions once you stop paying, goodbye app. You may think thats fine now, but I simply don’t believe people are thinking long term here. For example at some point you will want to retire from working life, but as you’ve probably built up decades of experience with these tools and most likely want to keep using them in your retirement you are still stuck paying the subscription, regardless of your situation.
Its akin to buying something on HP, but instead of owning it once you stop/finish paying you lose all rights to it.
Frankly IMHO its an appalling short sighted monetising system, though one that could so easily be tweaked to be the best system ever, all they have to do is after X number of years of subscription you are free to keep using the last version from say a year back (to prevent you from subbing for say three years then stopping just as they release a new version).
Its so straight forward and obvious I’m puzzled as to why they aren’t doing it. Allowing ownership after a certain amount of pay out just seems to make sense to me. Sure it needs some safe guards in place to avoid exploiting it, but thats not hard.
Sure, but my point was that that’s not actually rational. There’s a lot of objective stuff not being taken into account whenever you compare something finite (“12 months of use”) to something infinite (“permenant ownership”).
How long are you actually going to use it? For some people (I expect a very small minority) the answer could genuinely be “more than 4 years”, but in my case and in the case of anyone buying it for commercial or profession use I suspect that within 4 years you’d be looking to upgrade in any case. Then there’s the comparison between getting it now if you subscribe compared to getting it much later in the future if you save up and purchase - objectively, how much value could you get out of it in that time? Then there’s the fact that once you pay for a full purchase the money is all gone immediately, whereas a subscription means you pay over time - on average 50% of the money is in your bank account rather than theirs over the course of the subscription, giving you the benefits rather than them.
Objectively speaking there are cases where it’s better to purchase than to lease, for sure. But the “I want to own it because ownership is better in principle” argument is flawed. Do the numbers - there are use cases where both are optimal. You want to continue to use the stuff on occasion after you’ve retired? Pick up a month of the thing you need when you want to use it.
As for it not making sense that you can’t keep it after subbing for a certain amount of time, you’re not looking at it from their point of view. It’s a no brainer from a user’s point of view because getting more for less is always a no brainer. But what value does that give to the developer? They’re doing this so they can get income guaranteed over time. What you’re suggesting would do the exact opposite.
Having said all of that, I do think it’s stupid that Adobe no longer even offers an outright purchase option.