Should I upgrade to PS CS5? Adobe's CS Upgrade policy

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-default
Posts: 1916
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2015 1:53 am

Postby -default » Sat Mar 12, 2011 5:16 am

Look closely at the features - download the trial version - and see if you think the new features add up to $200 worth of value for you.  For some people, support for a new camera model in Adobe Camera Raw alone is worth the upgrade price.  For others the new HDR features will save the cost of an external HDR program.  The retouching tools, including content aware fill, will save time, as well as real cash money if you are a professional.  Then there's puppet warp, which stands, so to speak, in a class by itself.

Upgrade info here: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/upgrade/

Adobe's current policy allows you to jump up to three major revs per upgrade: so CS2 is the oldest version that can upgrade to CS5. If you are on a budget (who isn't) you may decide to wait, and a lot of people do just this. By the same token, if you are on CS3 now, you should probably make the jump to CS5 now, rather than pay full boat for CS6 when it comes out. 

The two pitfalls you want to avoid are A) falling more than three revs behind, so that you have to pay full boat for the new version, and B) paying for an upgrade just before the new version is announced, wasting your money.

For those who purchase an upgrade just after the new version is announced.  Adobe has traditionally provided a short window, between the announcement and release of a new version, where buyers are entitled to a complimentary upgrade.  So, for example, if you waited for CS6 to be announced, you could upgrade your copy of CS2 to CS5, and then get a complimentary upgrade to CS6, in effect getting a four rev upgrade.

leeharper_admin
Posts: 263
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2013 2:39 pm

Postby leeharper_admin » Sat Mar 12, 2011 10:52 pm

For those considering the upgrade - Adobe's Creative Suite is on an 18 month release cycle (approximately); if this holds for CS6 then CS6 should be available towards the end of October - around 7 months from now...

There is a good video that has recently been posted online by the Photoshop development team that discusses the CS5 release:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2011/03/a-candid-look-at-photoshop-cs5-development.html

The video suggests that the development team had less time to work on features than they would have liked, so potentially there will be lots of great stuff in CS6 that they didn't get around to last time. I'm lucky enough to have CS5, and I love it (it's a big step forward from CS4 - and a huge leap from CS3) but I'm very interested to see what's coming down the pipe potentially this autumn...

Lee.


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