How to enjoy Adobe CS6 as a starving student.

In the interest of offering some help rather than asking for it for a change, I thought I'd offer my first impressions on using the new Adobe Creative Cloud system. I don't know quite how new it may be, but it's entirely new to me and I wish I'd opened this up much sooner.

As some may recall seeing me mention, I'm a middle age college student on the stereo-type chart and working for a 'graphic design and technology' Associates degree before moving up to a higher level major in the same field later. As such, I've had a quandary, as so many in my position do. The software flat out required to be mastered in this field is EXPENSIVE! The full retail price for Adobe CS 6 Master is over $2,000!

A student discount brings that down below $1,000 but to a meager student, that is all the King's gold for a piece of software!

Now there do exist free solutions. Gimp is a free version of Illustrator for comparisons and Inkscape is like Indesign. However, work arounds and cheap fixes are trouble at best when simply learning the software under perfect conditions is a handful and then some.

So, I sat here wondering...as I enjoyed a rather ..ahem..long trial period on my Adobe stuff...How can I use Illustrator, Indesign, Photoshop Extended AND After Effects together and without going broke? That combination, with AE thrown in just throws out their 'suite' packages anyway.

Well, in times past......there wasn't an acceptable solution! Pirating ..is NOT...a solution. Not in today's academic world of everything *MUST* be 100% right, proper and by the numbers.

Let me share what I came to share:

Adobe Creative Cloud!:

Freedom to create
An Adobe® Creative Cloud™ Student and Teacher Edition membership gives you access to every Adobe Creative Suite® 6 desktop application, plus online services and other new apps as they're released, giving you the freedom to create anything you can imagine.

Source

$29 a month......vs. upwards of $1,000 on the student price and over $2,000 without student status. I'm the first one to say I am really tired and monthly 'fee''ed half to death......but in this case, it's a solution to a near intractable problem for any students in the design field. How to exist in a world where we got squat for money and everything needed costs a fortune.

I hope this offers a solution my school hadn't even mentioned to the classes I've heard....and I now have the entire master suite sitting here, downloaded and working.

It runs home to momma to check my right to keep using them at least once per MONTH. So you DO NOT need active internet connection to use them 24/7......and two computers can run it at any given time, just not at the SAME time as I understand the terms. Kinda like Steam in some ways. Home/Dorm computer and Laptop is what this allows for. Home, in my case...and a laptop with a blazing SSD to handle the level of programs here on graphics and 3-D rendering.

So...before throwing one's hands up and just accepting the Photoshop Extended ($189 by itself on student discount) let alone the whole suite is entirely out of reach.....this is at least something to look at. I'm not sure how this could have worked for me any other way, given the diverse program requirements this semester.

Good luck in everyone's studies and work out there!

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I hope bumping this thread is ok rather than starting a new one.
I just wanted to know how this Cloud system was all working for you Mr Wrabbit.

As an Adobe user for many, many years, I was quite dismayed to find out recently that I have missed the boat on my upgrade for Creative Suite.

Long story short, I am still running CS3 (due to financial reasons I have been unable to upgrade) and that Adobe have pretty much slit the throat on us older-version users as of December 2012 (which I have only just found out about now). Anyone still using CS3 either has to pay full price or go to the monthly Cloud system which is imho - robbery since I own the CS3 licence and it was supposed to be "for life", but anyway ...

Not going to go into how much Adobe sucks because of this how bad I think this is, I'd just like some feedback on how Cloud is working for you.

The Creative Suite is my work's lifeblood and I cannot do my job without it so any thoughts would be great.
Thanks

Sorry, just wanted to add - I am going to try to ring Adobe Australia and see if turning on the waterworks will let me upgrade at the normal price but I highly doubt it.

And actually - a monthly subscription kinda appeals to me but I'm just sooo wary and not inclined to change.

Well, for a number of reasons entirely outside Adobe's doing...I left the Graphics Design program at school after a couple ..ahem.. very expensive semesters for personal development, as it turns out. So, it was just last month I dropped my subscription to CS-6 Master through their cloud system.

I had absolutely no problems though. The full suite downloads and installs just like buying it outright. It's not like it's using the program on their servers or something crazy like that. It just checks once a month, min., to insure the subscription is still current. That means a connection isn't necessary every time you use it, either. It just won't carry on very long without 'running home to Mamma' to make sure you're still playing nice and paying the monthly.

Everything was 100% functional and trouble free though.

Cs-3?? Oh you poor thing! ! I mean that. I gave the school 10 kinds of hell in Fall and my last semester in GDT for coming up with some pathetic nonsense about money preventing them from upgrading from 5.5 to 6. The differences in just that jump were so dramatic, it's unforgivable that they hadn't bumped up the software last Summer like many of *US* did.

Oh, I was pissed because 6 is not backward compatible with 5 in all programs. Most? Yes...but After Effects? No Dice. Guess what class I was in? Motion Animation, of course! ..and before I knew they pulled a cheap stunt like that.

I'd strongly recommend using it if you aren't rolling in money for the full price of CS-6 Master (and how many have that kind of cash if they aren't already successful graphic artists or photographers?)

Thank you for the feedback. It looks like that's the way I'll have to go.
At least it will force me into keeping up to date with the latest versions if anything (which is something that I tend to slack off on) AND it's 100% tax deductible for me which is a

It's my prediction that a lot of software companies will go down this route in the future. It's all about a steady stream of revenue to them. Actually I remember Microsoft doing it quite some years back but it didn't take off back then. With "cloud" computing they'll all be jumping on the bandwagon soon.

Adobe really has their customers over a barrel with the lions share of the market in graphic design apps. Don't like the way they do business but their programs are second-to-none imho.

Thanks again, I feel a bit better now at making this decision.

reply to post by Netties Hermit

Adobe really has their customers over a barrel with the lions share of the market in graphic design apps. Don't like the way they do business but their programs are second-to-none imho.

Thanks again, I feel a bit better now at making this decision.

I couldn't agree more on that point. I've come to use Gimp and Inkscape as viable replacements to Photoshop and Illustrator. However, that only works in my personal and web related stuff. If I were in a commercial art house or doing this at a business? You're right. Adobe is the industry standard and JUST different enough in far too many ways to master either alternative choice and then bluff across using Adobe products as a cold walk-in.

If I might make a suggestion as well. Check into Xtream Path as an add-on to Illustrator. It changes the WHOLE way Illustrator functions for the little package it adds to the tools. You wouldn't think an add-on could do THAT much, but I'll tell you. I still have 5.5. onboard as a previously paid package from my first semester, 100% due to Xtream Path being a part of what I also added to it. It's been worth it to me, to have both versions installed and running side by side JUST for what that added.

They do have a version now compatible with CS-6, but by the time that came, I'd already moved out of GDT for those other reasons and changed my degree path to a general ed transfer for State University and a much different path to take.

Oh.. I was going through my Youtube history to sort stuff into a channel I've created for myself when I found this and immediately thought of you and this thread. Wanna see why the price is worth it for CS-6? (grin)



Happy creations!