OT: Photoshop - download £>boxed version?

jonathan-kenefec wrote on 11/22/2008, 2:25 AM
Hi folks,

The logic escapes me!

£ 16-97 more to buy the download rather than the boxed version...

https://store2.adobe.com/cfusion/store/index.cfm?store=OLS-UK&view=ols_prod&category=/Applications/Photoshop&distributionMethod=FULL&nr=0

That's the opposite of what I've seen with most other software sales. Can anybody explain the logic please? Just curious...

Also, is there any way to reduce expenditure on PS as that outlay is going to kill me? I'm thinking of things that have been recommended for Vegas purchases on this site before (e.g. purchasing an old version then upgrading). Or is there a 'B&H' style version out there...?

Any advice appreciated.

Cheers

Jon.

Comments

farss wrote on 11/22/2008, 3:05 AM
I cannot explain the difference in the download compared to the boxed version. Maybe they have lots of the boxed version they need to shift, the bandwidth cannot cost that much even though its probably a big download.

My advice and sorry it's going to involve spending more money is to buy the Creative Suite. That gives you PS Extended, AE Pro with Keylight and Color Finesse, Encore and Sound Booth and um Bridge and Device Central and Premier Pro and stock photos and heck it's a friggin lot of stuff that takes up a lot of DVDs, I think that's all. If you buy just before the next upgrade when there's good discounts to be had you also can qualify for a free upgrade. That's certainly the way to get the biggest bang per dollar

Of course if you haven't got that many dollars to invest and the time to learn all those tools or even two of them then you can still hunt around for bargains on PS and you might strike ones that include free upgrades to the next version. I know there's people selling legit old versions on eBay in boxes and the cost of them plus the upgrade is much cheaper than the ticketed price from Adobe.

Probably also worth a mention that you might not even need the latest and greatest version of PS either. For certain there's some very desirable tools in the later versions of PS however for most general photo manipulation the most ancient version of PS is more than enough. So perhaps working out first what your needs are could save you some money. Keep in mind that PS files are very compatible between versions of PS, both backward and forwards.

There's also some open source image manipulation software around that's worth a look at and it's free.
Bob.
jonathan-kenefec wrote on 11/22/2008, 3:32 AM
farss

Many thanks for your advice.

I'll consider your Creative Suite suggestion:

Con = the many hours I've invested in trying to get to grips with Vegas - not sure I have the heart to go through it all again with Premier Pro et al!

PRO: (Hopefully!) smooth integration between the various CS programs, including AE, the use of which does intrigue me, and of course PS etc.

I like your suggestion of the previous versions boxed set plus free upgrade. I'll have a hunt around...

Thanks for your time farss.

Cheers

Jon.

farss wrote on 11/22/2008, 5:00 AM
Just because you get all those tools doesn't mean you have to use them all. There's plenty of good reasons NOT to use PPro. You can still use AE quite happily without ever opening Ppro and you can use all the nice plugins in AE if you need them. You can import Vegas's rendered output into AE and back into Vegas, no problemo.
Same goes for Photoshop, a JPEG or PNG works in anything.
Some here much prefer Encore to DVDA, to be honest I have Encore and never even opened it, DVDA does all I need for now.

On the other hand I've just been building a simulated camera move using PS and AE's Vanishing Point tools. Vegas just can't pull off that trick. The rendered output from AE will go back into my Vegas project.

Bob.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 11/22/2008, 6:33 AM
check the details: tax on the download is a lot higher.

Is there some weird internet tax you guys have over there?

EDIT: if you want simple image manipulation, just use gimp. It does nearly everything p-shop does for $0.00. IMHO, don't get the other stuff unless you plan to use it. I'm sure you could find a use for it butit may be hard to make that $$ back. Definitely worth it though (if I had t he $$ I'd get it just for the video stuff, minus Premiere).
jonathan-kenefec wrote on 11/23/2008, 4:52 AM
Cheers Bob.

I did try and check AE compatibility with Vegas on Google once but no Vegas users seemed to use AE. Good to know - I'll investigate further.

Thanks

Jon.
jonathan-kenefec wrote on 11/23/2008, 4:55 AM
We pay import duty on virtually everything we buy from the US and elsewhere. I usually figure on an extra 20% by the time we pay import duty and courier handling fees. For example a dress for my girlfriend last week cost an extra £ 20 which was about 40% of the cost of the actual item!

Cheers

Jon
farss wrote on 11/23/2008, 5:24 AM
Well I'm a Vegas user and I use AE and I can say quite confidently say I'm not the only one. Even a lot of FCP users also use AE, it's pretty much the compositing tool of choice for most video work. There's certainly more high end tools but at a much higher price.
It's not the easiest tool to use, no compositing tool is, even the basic compositing tools in Vegas are probably only fathomed out and used be a small percentage of Vegas users.

I guess what you don't get between Vegas and AE that you get between PPro and AE is the ability to seemlessly bounce sequences between the apps. It's not really a showstopper.

I just wanted to work on a few seconds of a Vegas project in AE. Highlighted the section in Vegas, rendered to the Sony YUV codec in HD, opened AE and imported the file. Render it out of AE and dragged it back into Vegas on a new upper track. Job done.

My biggest gripe about AE is you can spend a lot of money buying extra plugins for it and you can loose whole nights playing with it. Be warned it can be addictive.

Bob.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 11/23/2008, 5:45 AM
> ...but no Vegas users seemed to use AE.

I would venture to guess that there are a number of Vegas users who use AE. I do. It's just another tool in the box. Vegas does such a great job at composting that Vegas users don't need AE for as many tasks as a PPro user would but it's really great for 3D work and Motion Tracking. While Vegas can do 3D composting, it has no way of seeing and manipulating all of the layers at once so it gets very tedious to do advanced 3D. In AE this is very easy. Vegas also has no notion of a camera so parallax is hard to achieve. There are also lots of great plug-ins that only work with AE which is one of the reasons I decided to buy it.

I agree that buying the Creative Suite is probably the way to go if you can get it at a discount. All I wanted was Photoshop and AE but they are so expensive on their own that it was a better deal to just get the suite. I bought an old version on eBay to get the upgrade price. AE CS4 includes Mocha which is an awesome Planar Tracker that blows away any point tracker. It's kind of voodoo the way it tracks objects. Very powerful.

~jr
jonathan-kenefec wrote on 11/23/2008, 6:58 AM
Bob / JohnyRoy,

Thanks guys. I gave so much to learn! I sometimes envy these college kids who study this 24/7.

AE and PS are pretty much all I need but I'll follow your advice and and try to pick up an oldy CS from e bay and then upgrade.

My sister used to be a lecturer at college - that educational pricing seems attractive - of all the times for her to have changed careers!

Cheers

Jon.
daryl wrote on 11/23/2008, 8:37 AM
I have been a Vegas user for many years, and I use AE, Vegas and AE are a good team. Biglad, if you have spent many hours learning Vegas, I'm pretty sure you'd take many MANY hours to make Premier usable. I've been working on it for a while lately, and it makes me SO glad that Vegas is here. Vegas is much more intuitive than Premier. Also, the comment that "even if you have all the tools, you don't have to use them all" is so true.
rs170a wrote on 11/23/2008, 8:44 AM
...that educational pricing seems attractive...

It still can be.
Sign up for a night school course that interests you.
This should get you a student number which will get you educational pricing on most software.
Once caveat is that, according to most EULAs, you can't use software purchased for educational use to make money.

Mike
TheHappyFriar wrote on 11/23/2008, 10:34 AM
Once caveat is that, according to most EULAs, you can't use software purchased for educational use to make money.

Yet another score for SCS software: no such limit. :D
jonathan-kenefec wrote on 11/23/2008, 12:13 PM
Thanks Daryl,

Good to know that the time invested in Vegas will not be wasted! Sounds like I'll go for the CS (Production) and just use the PS and AE.

Cheers

Jon.
jonathan-kenefec wrote on 11/23/2008, 12:15 PM
Mike/ Kelly,

No fear of commercial use - I'm just an enthusiastic amateur. If I tried then I'm sure 'don't give up your day job would apply'! :-)

Cheers

Jon.
jabloomf1230 wrote on 11/23/2008, 3:24 PM
"Vegas does such a great job at composting that Vegas users don't need AE for as many tasks as a PPro user would but it's really great for 3D work and Motion Tracking. While Vegas can do 3D composting, it has no way of seeing and manipulating all of the layers at once so it gets very tedious to do advanced 3D. In AE this is very easy. Vegas also has no notion of a camera so parallax is hard to achieve. There are also lots of great plug-ins that only work with AE which is one of the reasons I decided to buy it."

I also use Vegas with AE, with Cineform being the "glue". I have to add to the above quote, one more important point in favor of AE. There are some incredible AE tutorials both online and as payware. I've saved myself an awful lot of time by finding the appropriate tutorial, instead of reinventing the compositing wheel. Videocopilot.net and Creative Cow are the best sites for this. I also second the motion on the number and quality of plug-ins for AE.
jonathan-kenefec wrote on 11/23/2008, 3:39 PM
Cheers mate. Seems that there are plenty of folk using AE with Vegas. I know where to come when I have questions then! :-)

Thanks

Jon.