Photoshop or Elements

Trev4

Trev4

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Trev
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Could I have your opinions please. I have been a user of Photoshop Elements for some time, currently I use version 7. However, I have been offered a new unregistered copy of CS2 for £90.00.

The current version of Photoshop is CS4, so this is 2 versions old. Would you think there is any advantage of an older full version of Photoshop over the current Elements 7, or is it better to look for a newer version, maybe CS3. I feel the full price of CS4 even at £307.00 upgrade is hard for me to justify for the use it will get.

Most of what I do is covered by Elements, it’s only occasionally that I come across a project that I need the full version for, but I have found that this is happening more often to me lately. Sometimes there is a workaround in Elements, but not always.

Having not seen the full version of Photoshop operating, I am unsure how much difference there is between it and Elements.

Your opinions would be appreciated. Cheers guys.
 
i never seem to notice many differences between versions but thats because i dont do hardcore editing, i had a copy of cs2 and my uncle got a copy of cs3 from a colleague at work and i dont see major changes so i always think that you should upgrade every 3 versions to get the full benefit of differences not to mention ssaving £500 a year for each version upgrade. also dont forget that every year a new version comes out anyway so im not upgrading until cs6.
 
mastertrinity said:
i never seem to notice many differences between versions but thats because i dont do hardcore editing, i had a copy of cs2 and my uncle got a copy of cs3 from a colleague at work and i dont see major changes so i always think that you should upgrade every 3 versions to get the full benefit of differences not to mention ssaving £500 a year for each version upgrade. also dont forget that every year a new version comes out anyway so im not upgrading until cs6.
Click to expand...

That makes sense, so it seems reasonable to think that for what I am doing the difference will be small, thanks for that.

spencer said:
You could always download the free trial version to see how much difference there is?

Spence
Click to expand...

Thats a good idea, to be honest, I wasnt aware Adobe offered free trials, something I will try. Cheers :thumbs:
 
I haven't used Elements before, but I'm a keen Photoshop user for the last 14 years. To be honest there is not much difference between CS2 and CS3. CS4 has a lot more design bits and 3D imagery. So CS2 may suit you? If your running the latest version of Elements, that might be better than the older CS2?
 
Reading through the post-processing part of this forum a few minutes ago. Someone seemed to suggest that an upgrade from elements to CS4 would be around £307 if you find the right part of the Adobe website.
That is £200 more than your CS2, but £400 cheaper than a full CS4....
 
Photoshop CS2 is a damn fine piece of software. I suspect you've got to be one deadly serious professional to warrant the purchase of CS4 over CS2.

CS2 at £90 is a great price and I'd say go for it.

The other option worth mentioning is a student licence version of Creative Suite. That includes CS4, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, In-Design and a few other cool products.

If you are eligible and would find the other software to be of use then it's well worth considering. It's about £400 I think. (Yes, I know that's a LOT more than £90 but not much different from the CS2 upgrade.
 
CS2 Is fine, Though I have used some of the newer features in CS3... I simply can not justify CS4

But at £90 the CS2 is great value.
 
Lester, coldpenguin, budfox, and Terrywoodenpic

Thanks very much guys for your opinions and advice here. It seems CS2 will be fine for what I do as an amateur that’s working up the learning curve very slowly. As agreed, the price of £90.00 is a good price so it seems its worth a punt.
The next thing I have to decide on is whether CS2 is a worthwhile investment over the latest version of Elements (7) which I already have.
I will try a trial download from Adobe, the difficulty though is that the trial version is CS4 as opposed to CS2, so there is a bit of guessing work to do as to how much actual difference there is.

By the way Terrywoodenpic, I hate to break the news that you have a bug on your signature, I tried spraying and squashing it but it didn’t work lol. It looks good, wouldn’t mind using that on my web page if I could find it.

Thanks again chaps, your help is appreciated :thumbs:
Trev
 
Trev4 said:
Lester, coldpenguin, budfox, and Terrywoodenpic

Thanks very much guys for your opinions and advice here. It seems CS2 will be fine for what I do as an amateur that’s working up the learning curve very slowly. As agreed, the price of £90.00 is a good price so it seems its worth a punt.
The next thing I have to decide on is whether CS2 is a worthwhile investment over the latest version of Elements (7) which I already have.
I will try a trial download from Adobe, the difficulty though is that the trial version is CS4 as opposed to CS2, so there is a bit of guessing work to do as to how much actual difference there is.

By the way Terrywoodenpic, I hate to break the news that you have a bug on your signature, I tried spraying and squashing it but it didn’t work lol. It looks good, wouldn’t mind using that on my web page if I could find it.

Thanks again chaps, your help is appreciated :thumbs:
Trev
Click to expand...

The bug is here http://i39.tinypic.com/2psoi7b.jpg

There is just so much more that you can do in CS2 than in 7
 
singlespeed said:
CS2 doesn't support the newest versions of the Camera raw plug in. This means that raw files from newer cameras can't be loaded directly into CS2. Other file types are ok direct from the camera, or raw files if converted to JPEG or TIFF before opening in CS2

List of compatable cameras

DPreview of CS2 here, which should give you an idea of the pros and cons >>> http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/AdobePhotoshopCS2/
Click to expand...

you an convert raw to dng to open in cs2 I think
 
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