Adobe CS
anybody feel like blessing me with their knowledge on this package of apps? i'm a complete novice when it comes to computer stuff but i've been exposed to Pagemaker and Acrobat and so have been doing pretty fun projects on my own with inDesign. is it worth investing in (i'm still in school so i get the educational discount off the $1299 price tag) if i'm not a pro?
Comments
Long answer: yes with a maybe
What kind of stuff are you planning on doing? You don't get the edu discount as just a student, you have to be an educator for it to apply. Even if you could get the discount, I wouldn't waste my money unless you are really planning on using the software. It's so powerful that you will probably never take advantage of all its features unless you really know what your doing. Just my $.02
[/B] You don't get the edu discount as just a student, you have to be an educator for it to apply. [/B]
You sure about this? Here in Canada I can walk into my friendly campus computer store at university and pick up the full CS for under $CDN 450.
Originally posted by DMBand0026
Short answer: No
Long answer: yes with a maybe
What kind of stuff are you planning on doing? You don't get the edu discount as just a student, you have to be an educator for it to apply. Even if you could get the discount, I wouldn't waste my money unless you are really planning on using the software. It's so powerful that you will probably never take advantage of all its features unless you really know what your doing. Just my $.02
um, DMB, i don't know where you go to school, but the edu discounts are for both students AND educators. trust me. i have been, uh, benefitting from this system for a very long time (both as a student, and now with my wife a permanent educator-for-life). you can even get the discounts via adobe's online store, so if your local campus bookstore is feeding you some line about only educators getting the discount, just go online and have it shipped to you within a week.
the $25 per app thing sounds like a site license, which is more rare, but happens when a university really wants to encourage adoption among a lot of its students (or the vendor cuts them a SWEET deal -- see any campus and any microsoft product). i once bought freehand from the ohio state bookstore for $8 because it was used in so many classes... they just got a site license, and you signed something agreeing to destroy your copy when you stopped being a student anymore. no lie.
Originally posted by rok
...see any campus and any microsoft product...
My wife attended Indiana University where she payed $5.00 dollars per CD for any Microsoft product. Windows 2000 was $5.00, XP was $5.00, Office 2000 Professional was $20.00, and Office XP was $10.00.
...and now back to our regularly scheduled post.
What are you going to school for? If you feel you can use it after graduation to make some money then buy. If you have money to waste, give me some, um, buy it. It's a great suite of applications. Photoshop is the king of raster image editors. Illustrator, in my opinion, is the king of vector image editors. InDesign will, in my opinion, soon replace Quark as the king of page layout. GoLive is not Dreamweaver. Acrobat is an useful application in almost any vocation.
hey thanks for your opinion. i'm currently going to school to be a math teacher at the high school, possibly college level. it really pertains quite minimally to my major.
everyone else:
just to clarify, at my particular school i can get the Creative Suite for a low, low price of $399. it's not like i have that kinda money just laying around, but i do enjoy tinkering with inDesign quite a bit and would find Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat handy too. GoLive, I'm still not sure about, but hey - it comes with the package. i find myself wanting to play with inDesign all the time and am very interested in maybe doing that on the side with a little more experience. i suppose i can use the version of it i have now, although i would like the total suite. i'm the kinda person who sees a sign or menu or business card somewhere and immediately criticizes it thinking to myself how much better it could be. i've designed some small things like: business cards, calendars, planners, a newsletter, lots of business forms... little things that don't require a whole lot of skill, maybe just a good eye for layout and some mediocre knowledge of the program. my experience lies mostly with inDesign and Pagemaker. i'm not sure what i would do if i had the whole suite since i don't REALLY know what they're exactly used for and how to use them. i was hoping to get it, learn how to use it, and then have that as a hobby/2nd income. but i'm not sure how naive that idea is, considering there are professionals out there who do that.
and so she rambles on and on, not really leading up to any significant point...
Over the years, I've gotten a couple side jobs from friends and relatives. There are still a few people out there who want something that looks better than a crappy Microsoft Word document, and are willing to pay a little for it.
Legally speaking, I believe that you are not supposed to make any profit from stuff made with academic software, but I don't know that anyone is checking all that closely.
dood.. that's true; i didn't even think of that. but yeah since i mostly just wanna mess around with it... i think i WILL do it. i just needed a little push.
um... i LOVE this forum!
The bottom line is, if you have the will to learn these things (either because you think they're "cool" or because it's a job requirement or whatever), you will slowly but surely work your to being comfortable with them or at least the most common types of operations.
If you think you might want to learn to use the CS apps "for the hell of it", they'll most likely sit on a shelf collecting dust. Maybe just pick the ones most applicable to your goals and buy those at the educational discount (unless the studio is just dirt cheap or something).
Originally posted by DMBand0026
... You don't get the edu discount as just a student, you have to be an educator for it to apply. ...
Generally, grade school and high school students don't get the discount, college and university students do.
Moreover, I don't think anyone checks very hard.
I too am thinking about getting this package. I'll have to pay full freight as I would use it commercially. I got a demo of InDesign at MWSF that was quite interesting. I liked the way you could integrate movies into pdf documents. The same document could be interactive on a computer but would still print nicely.