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218 of 240 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Features but Still a Flawed License Manager, May 6, 2005
My experience with Photoshop CS2 has been limited thus far, but it does appear to offer some nice new features, particularly to the enhancement in Adobe Camera Raw, the Spot Healing Tool, and possibly Adobe Bridge as I explore it more. A major drawback to me personally, is that changes have been made in the user interface that conflict with the old Extensis PhotoTools plug-in, namely in that the PhotoBars component which provides a customizable toolbar ehancement will no longer work. Although Extensis no longer supports PhotoTools and deleted the PhotoTools component when Photoshop 6 was issued, I have been involved in maintaining PhotoBars so that it would work on the PC platform in Photoshop versions 6, 7, and CS. The customizable toolbars added a wonderful extension of usability to the Photoshop interface, and the loss of that capability due to changes made in Photoshop CS2 is very unfortunate.
Of great interest to me was to see how Adobe has changed License Management, i.e., product activation in Photoshop CS2. While the license manager does appear greatly improved in terms of not being as likely to have errant reactivations arise due to use of the System Restore utility in Windows XP, hardware changes, etc., it still manifests the same critical flaw as existed in Photoshop CS. Namely, Adobe has not provided any grace period at all for the instances when reactivation is prompted. So, if you are someone perhaps travelling with a laptop computer and are ever at a remote location where telephone or internet access is not readily available, you are at risk of fully losing use of Photoshop CS2 in the event of an errant reactivation prompt arising. The odds of this occurring do appear greatly reduced due to changes made in the triggers affecting a reactivation, but the risk is there nonetheless. Adobe should have implemented a short-term grace period of continued use following a prompt for reactivation, so that a user would not unexpectedly be faced with denied access at a critical time. The only alternative in this situation is to have a backup copy of an earlier version of Photoshop installed for use until Photoshop CS2 can be reactivated or, to employ the use of software hacks that defeat the license manager. The preferred solution would be for Adobe to provide an update that incorporates a reactivation grace period, but they seem to be ignoring the problem. I had hoped that the new Transfer Activation process in Photoshop CS2 might allow a user to export activation state data to removable media which, if an errant reactivation prompt arose, could be used to re-establish the valid activation state on the PC. Unfortunately, the Tranfer Activation process requires an internet connection and thus is again useless if one is at a remote location.
With regard to the 1st review posted here, installation of Photoshop CS2 is permitted to two computers under the normal single-user license. The only restriction defined in the license is that these 2 installations cannot be used concurrently. The license specifically reads as follows:
"2.4 Portable or Home Computer Use. The primary user of the Computer on which the Software is installed may install a second copy of the Software for his or her exclusive use on either a portable Computer or a Computer located at his or her home, provided the Software on the portable or home Computer is not used at the same time as the Software on the primary Computer."
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46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
comments by a long-time, professional user, August 30, 2006
I won't include my website URL here, but I'm a professional photographer, who displays and sells his work at juried exhibitions. I've been using Photoshop since version 5.0, roughly 6-7 years.
Frankly, I'm surprised to see how many negative reviews there are here of Photoshop CS2, and that overall the product only gets three stars. I understand all the frustration, though. Even on a top-of-the-line machine, "PS CS2" can be slow at times. However, in my case, that's because I'm working on incredibly large files.
For example, my camera / scanner combination typically produces 50 megapixel images. By the time multiple layers are added in PS, one image file can be 500 MB - 1 GB in size. This is exactly why I have a dual-Opteron system with 4 GB of RAM: so I can work on these monster files in Photoshop!
For me, Photoshop is a must-have. There are *no* alternative programs for me to consider that can handle my files and do what I want to get done. I don't even want to mention all the advanced features that I use on a daily basis, frankly because that's part of my edge as a professional. I've spent over five years working in PS everyday, and have carefully studied several advanced books on PS. The learning curve is long, but the rewards are great if you have high goals and high standards.
Yeah, Adobe's got some major improvements to make, along the lines that other reviewers have mentioned. For me, the only real problem is poor and often wasteful use of system memory. And I would agree with other reviewers here that for most people, the full Photoshop CS2 is probably a waste of money. Photoshop Elements is probably a better way to go, though I haven't used it personally. I know a good web designer who uses Paint Shop Pro, and who seems to be happy.
IMHO, some people are probably drawn to Photoshop the way others are drawn to AutoCad or Solidworks or 3D Studio Max. All these programs are incredibly powerful tools that can support an entire career if one puts in the time and effort to become a true expert user. You can't make a career out of PS Elements, or Paint Shop Pro, or GIMP, or whatever else other reviewers may mention. PS CS2 is "the standard" for image manipulation.
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176 of 203 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Adobe Photoshop as dinosaur, June 14, 2005
Adobe's insane pricing and licensing makes this product way too overpriced and inflexible for anyone except professionals. The laughable part is that you dont even get *reasonable* support for such premium pricing.
Every designer I know has at least 3 computers - work, laptop, and home desktop. The fact that Adobe insists that these people buy almost $2000 in licenses for one person to run this single application on all 3 is beyond arrogant. Even M$ Office lets you run on 3 PCs!
What is even more insulting then the price is the strategic deployment of features which are held back and then launched to incite almost annual upgrades, which cost more than the full versions of this product's competing products!
Additionally, the continuous lack of evolution in this product's UI (and lets be clear it is *POOR*) is amazing considering that so many of its users are UI professionals. When I fire it up it still smells like the version I ran on WFW 3.11.
The processing features are excellent, thats all that is keeping this product in position is its engineering team, because marketing, support, and UI are substandard.
As soon as Paint Shop Pro aquired layers it completely obliterated 95% of what Photoshop is used for daily in terms of productivity.
However, Corel has really taken the wheels off of Paint Shop Pro since its aquisition.
There is a lot of room in this space for competition to this product, M$ is looking to move into this market with Acrylic. Hopefully they will be successful and knock Adobe off its arcane high horse old-school marketing practices.
Its really sad when a company needs to be taught a lesson from M$ in humility!
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