Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop CS2 Upgrade from Photoshop Version 5.5+ [Old Version]

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

I'm an avid Photoshop user. I'm even a member of the NAPP. I use Adobe Photoshop every day in my work becuase it's great for everything from television produciton to web design to making your ex-girlfriend look like she has a huge nose. So I'm already a raving fan, and when CS2 was announced I was on it.

Where I have a problem is with Adobe itself. First, when I recieved my upgrade I tried to install it but ran into a problem. It wouldn't accept my previous version, nor would it accept the serial number. A bit put out, I called Adobe.

Here's where problem number two came in - they wouldn't even talk to me until I paid $40 for tech support!

I'm a small business owner. If I treated my clients with this sort of contempt I'd be flipping burgers or selling blood to make a living. But what do you do when a faceless corporation initiates a policy designed to cut down their own costs for technical support by placing the burden on their own customers?

The next slap in the face came when I finally got through to tech support. The reason my serial number wouldn't work was because I had been foolish enough to purchase the Adobe Creative Suite as a full package. The copy of Photoshop CS that I had wasn't a stand-alone copy, it was part of a package. In order to use the upgrade I would have to have a full version of Photoshop.

Of course, I DO have a full version of Photoshop. I've been using it for years. But it completely INFURIATES me that I paid several hundred dollars for the Creative Suite and to upgrade it I'll have to pay several hundred more. Because I was a loyal enough customer to buy the entire product, my punishment will be that I can't upgrade any one piece of it. I must upgrade the whole.

The trouble is, I don't NEED an upgrade for the entire suite. I bought it so I would have the additional software, but the only thing I really need to be up to date is Photoshop. Therefore, upgrading the whole package is a waste of my money.

I'm very dissappointed in Adobe over this. There's not much I can do about it, unfortunately. I still need Photoshop. I suppose the only recourse I have is to be far less sympathetic towards the company when I hear of people in my industry who have obtained illegal copies of the software. Who can blame them, at this point? It's hard to condemn them for stealing software from a company that obviously has an agenda to rob its customers blind.

Of course... that's just the humble opinion of a nationally syndicated columnist and producer.

I bought the update, having the Adobe Suite. However, when I went to update Photoshop, I was blocked. Seems that you must update the whole suite, so my update is of no value to me. Since I opened the shrinkwrap in the course of finding this out, I can not return it. Adobe suggests that I put it on Ebay.

Photoshop CS2 has several important new features and is a worthy upgrade. I give 5 stars for Photoshop CS2 and ZERO stars for the included Adobe Bridge 1.0 File Browser. Bridge replaces the old and excellent File Browser from Photoshop CS. It is very slow to open, bug laden, and clunky. Hopefully Adobe will see the light and scrap this abomination. It is truly an example of some of the worst design in software history.

The product may be great, but it is not upgradeable from any version, as this title claims, and even the package leaves the impression. I had version 5.0 installed, but when I try to upgrade it says I must have 5.5 or higher, so I cannot install it, let alone "activate" it.

It's sad to see a good company fall so low as to annoy its long-term customers when the remedy is so easy to do.

Adobe has been trading on the name "Photoshop" for so long, you can't blame a few people for assuming that this product will upgrade Photoshop Elements and Photoshop Album. It won't do that. I would have though that it would upgrade a full version of Photoshop in Creative Suite and other packages, but it won't.

However, what isn't said anywhere - not on the package, in the package, or on Adobe's web site - is that this upgrade, which the package cover says will upgrade "a previous version of this software product," will not upgrade a version earlier than Adobe Photoshop version 5.5.

What is even worse is that there is no obvious way of getting the upgrade if you have an earlier version. There's no mention of what to do, even though it could be as simple as putting in a slip of paper in the box giving you instructions, or making a link on the web page.

Amazon and other retailers have no way of knowing that the product does not perform as advertised. Like I said, there is no warning that a person who spent hundreds of dollars on a legal version of the full version of Photoshop is not allowed to use this upgrade.

My state (Massachusetts) has laws in place saying that nothing can be sold if it's "not fit for the purpose intended." This has already been applied to software and I am debating whether to apply to my state's Attorney-General to deal with this product.

Of course, Adobe could be a little more accurate in saying exactly which products can be upgraded using this product.

But so far, they haven't.


EDIT - Today (11/26/05) I finally got what I paid for - Photoshop CS2. While cleaning up I came across the CD and serial number for the version of Photoshop installed on my machine. I ran the install program and came to the dialog box where they tell you to insert the CD for versions 5.5 or above, and so I inserted my Photoshop 3 CD which gave me a dialog box telling me to get in touch with Adobe Customer Service.

I called and spoke with a helpful woman who told me how to install the new program. This requires you to have both serial numbers, so I can't help you here. After installing the software I read the read me file on my hard drive, which includes:

"If you are upgrading from a version of Photoshop prior to Photoshop 5.5, you will need to contact Adobe Customer Service at 800-833-6687 for installation assistance. For those outside of North America, please contact Adobe Customer Service in your region for installation assistance."

However, this information is hidden away in a folder on the CD. There are two files at the topmost level - "ReadMeFirst.html" and "How to install.html" which should contain the information, but don't.

I bought this product because it was titled as "... Upgrade From Photoshop (Any Version)". I have been using Photoshop Elements 2.0 for years and am also using Photoshop 5.0. When I tried downloading this New CS2 version I was informed that I needed a 5.5 version or better. The "Any Version" title is false advertisement. When I sent an e-mail to Amazon about the product problem they never wrote me back. I paid a large sum of money for a box, a disc and a book that I can't use without spending more money. Needless to say, I am very disappointed in this product and Amazon.

I, too, have been an avid user of Photoshop for some years but my shiny new upgrade to Photoshop CS2 (more expensive here in the UK at the GBP equivalent of $200) has failed because I have the entire creative suite. It seems that the version of Photoshop CS included with the creative suite is not 'valid' and cannot be upgraded alone.

I have had Photoshop as a stand-alone product for a good number of years and as a loyal customer Adobe, and a huge fan of Photoshop, upgrading to the entire creative suite when the option became available seemed to be a good idea. However I have now revised my opinion as Adobe have decreed that I cannot upgrade the piece of software I use most - Photoshop - without upgrading the entire suite. In my opinion, forcing customers to buy additional upgrades they do not want or need in order to obtain the single upgrade they require is tantamount to daylight robbery. Do they seriously think they will retain their present client base by treating customers this way?

Adobe appear to have adopted a rather cavalier attitude to their customers by taking this route - perhaps the recent shenanigans that Microsoft went through in relation to anti-trust legislation has escaped their notice? I sincerely hope Adobe get what is coming to them - some kind of legal case to teach them that straightforward business practice, honesty and keeping their customers happy should be their main priorities.

I was using a PhotoShop 7: PhotoShop CS2's new features seemed compelling, so I downloaded a 30-days trial version to test drive it.

There are so many new nice features that if you qualify for the $150 upgrade, it is *nearly* a no-brainer.


(+) PROS:

* Plenty of new filters and image manipulation tools, new filters "interface," a pop-up dialog that allows you to see all filters and switch between one another, while having -in most cases- a real-time preview of the effect the filter will have. (Unfortunately, preview only includes the active layer, I did not find an option to show underlying layers.)

* Free Transform -> Warp is a godsend addition that I have come to use with increasing frequency, instead of combinations of transformations and filter effects I used with PhotoShop 7.

* Bridge, the image file browser that comes with CS2, is really useful, although it tends to draw a lot of computer memory when the folders you navigate contain several hundred images; my bad, presumably. Web designers, you'll be happy to learn that Bridge comes bundled with search engine for free royalty-free medium-res images. I say "web designers," because print designers will find the images' resolution too low, (between 72 and 150 DPI at most, I would guess.) The catch with Bridge is that to use labels and notes on your pics, you have to add them. You probably already started your design career, (since you're reading the "upgrade" section.) So, in order to benefit from Bridge's database-like applications, you have to start annotating all your graphics. But this is more a problem with life being less perfect than it could be if it tried really hard, than with the folks at Adobe.

* CS2 allows you to convert images/layers into "SmartObjects," (a user-friendly name for "vector graphics.") SmartObjects can be resized back and forth without loss of quality, (and without having to switch to Illustrator, FireWorks or Flash for vector resize, as I had to do in the past.) An obvious application was logos: I often have to include various sizes of the same logo in different documents: well, SmartObjecting the logo made it look nice and crisp even at small sizes, and I didn't have to alter the styles - for example to prevent a shadow or bevel from becoming disproportionately huge.

* Ability to select multiple layers by control-clicking: in many cases this will spare you the extra step of having to temporarily link layers. Tip: select the topmost, hold down the SHIFT key, select the "downmost," and your 15 layers are currently selected. What a time-saver!

* Ability to create folders and directly put the selected layers inside it, very nice: control-select your layers and click the folder icon or hit Ctrl+G, and you're done: the folder was created and the layers are inside. It saves you quite a few steps compared with previous implementations (possibly PhotoShop CS1, definitely PhotoShop 7 and under.)

* Ability to create SUBfolders: priceless, as MasterCard profoundly notes. PhotoShop 7 only lets you create 1-level deep folders. Subfolders really allow you to divide your projects in topical sections, which makes layer management very easy and efficient, particularly with large projects.


I found only 2 cons in PhotoShop CS2, but they are major enough for me that I will probably postpone upgrading until I or Adobe figures out workarounds.


(-) CONS:

* Saving while editing a font layer: after having lost parts of projects in the past for having not saved, I now press "Ctrl+S" on the keyboard as a second nature. But during the 30 days during which I tried CS2, every time I saved while editing a font layer, the saving process took 5-10 seconds, which was exasperating, considering the application cannot be used until the saving process has completed. It never did it for me with PhotoShop 7, and never did with CS2 while editing non-text layers.

* Swap space, ("garbage collection.") Unlike PhotoShop 7, CS2 has -in my experience- questionable garbage collection. I usually leave PhotoShop running 24/7 since I use it everyday. After a certain period, which seemingly depends on the number of files I opened, my computer becomes slower. Looking at the processes running in the background usually reveals CS2 using over 900Mb of memory, even after I close all my docs in PhotoShop. These 900Mb do not include the new temporary swap files CS2 uses, which typically amounts to an additional 100-200Mb. After shutting down CS2 and restarting it, everything is back to normal. While this problem is easily fixed, it seems like you always have to shut down PhotoShop at the worst moment, in full gear inspiration, when trying to meet a past deadline, or when you just told your girlfriend you couldn't accompany her to groceries because you had a project to finish, (not that I would ever do anything like that.)


Please note that a couple points I mentioned above may also apply to PhotoShop CS1. Also, keep in mind that the two drawbacks I experienced may be unique to my computer, and may not apply to you, (especially since no review posted before mine seems to mention them.) But I encourage you to download the free 30-days trial before purchasing the upgrade.

For those of you who are curious, I use Windows XP Pro with a 3.4Ghz P4, 2Gb RAM, a 256Mb NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, a 7200RPM HD with 50+Gb available space, regularly defragmented. By most standards, this is a "good" computer, which I why CS2's behavior surprised me a lot. Has anyone else experienced the same two problems? (apartment223 at hotmail dot com)


In the irrelevant comments section, I'd like to point out that the term "upgrade" for CS2 is somewhat pejorative: although "shapes" were always vector graphics, the ability to create vector graphics on the fly with SmartObjects, and natively use vector fonts, brings PhotoShop CS2 into a arena very different from that of earlier versions. I don't know how insightful or naive I am in thinking that we may very soon witness the fusion of PhotoShop and Illustrator into a brand new, all encompassing product. I shiver at this thought, it's as thrilling as overdue.


In spite of the cons -that you may experience or not- I can only give five stars to what is an amazing and mature piece of software. If you qualify for the $150 upgrade, it's a steal.

Photoshop is absolutely the essential program for anyone who is serious about digital photography. Nobody ever completely masters it. It is an outstanding program. However, the addition of the "Bridge" was a bad idea. It is a complex new program that adds little to the file browser of earlier version (CS) and should either be vastly improved or dumped (preferably the latter). In addition, the Raw Image converter has been changed. I for one, am not pleased with it's saving in the background and remaining open. Otherwise, it remains a must. Not sure that it is much of an improvement over CS though.

I have now had more time to work with Bridge. It's worse than I thought. I am not sure what was on Adobe's mind when it added it. I am reading "Raw CS2" and it's well written, but confirms that Photoshop CS2 is not functional without understanding this complex program. As a lover of Photshop, it's come to a point that I am wondering if it's not time to consider bringing back film. This was poorly thought out and is not easy to learn. I simply feel that the prior version (which I reinstalled) has a more practical, if not perfect, browser. I reiterate, Bridge is worse than I thought.

And it gets even worse - read the following 7-28-2005

Real World Camera Raw with Photshop CS2 (Bruce Fraser)
Page 92 quote -

"Like the sliders on the Adjust tab, the Curve tab operates on the linear capture--in fact, the slider adjustments and the curve adjustments get concatenated into a single operation during the raw conversion. But the user interface for the Curve tab makes it appear that the curve is operating on gamma 2.2 encoded data. If the curve interface corresponded directly to the linear data, the midtone level would be around 50, and the three-quarter tone would be all the way down to level 10 or so, which would make it pretty hard to edit! (If this paragraph went straight over your head, go back and take another look at "Exposure and Linear Capture" in Chapter 1, Digital Capture Raw, and "Gamma and Tone Mapping" in Chapter 2, How Camera Raw Works. """""

Are you kidding? Is this, the tip of the iceberg, and what we should be waisting our time with in order to "learn" photoshop CS2? Has Adobe gone mad? The above is a direct quote and consistant with the rest of Photshop CS2 explainations.

I've relied on sturdy, reliable Photoshop for so long, I've forgotten what it's like to have problems with it. Our major issue with the CS2 upgrade is slowness, Photoshop is particularly bad. These are serious, abnoxious, teeth grinding problems - awful lags, drags, stuterring, slow redraws, slow switches from one program to another, even with plenty of memory and drive space. CS1 had none of these problems, it was so smooth. Hard to believe? Search the internet for "CS2 is so slow" and you'll be shocked at the tweeks and workarounds people are creating. If this type of slowness and poorly written software is what Adobe has in mind for Macromedia programs - I'm worried. But what can you do? For now this is must-have software.