Buy Photoshop 7 or wait for 8?

[Suzanna]

I have Elements and have been testing Photoshop 7.

Should I purchase Photoshop 7 at the reduced price, or wait for Photoshop 8?

Can I upgrade to P8 from P7? What do you think that would cost?

What's my better deal?

Thanks.

Suzanna

[chris h]

With the imminent arrival of PS8 I'd hang fire until it appears then you have the option of seeing what the new version contains and and assess reviews of it. If it suits dive in, otherwise pick up a cheap copy of the by now obsolete 7.

[Ed_L]

I agree with Chris. The upgrade to Photoshop 7 cost around $150.00, but I think the price went down a little after it had been on the market for a while.

Ed

[DannyRaphael]

Suzanna:

Welcome to RetouchPRO...

RE: 7 now or wait for 8? - Food for thought

First, if you purchase/install 7, you will be able to upgrade to 8 for sure.

When PS7 came out, for the first 60 days (I believe) you could get the upgrade for $139, less a $50 rebate from Amazon.com. I wouldn't be surprised if there's another upgrade incentive of that nature.

It's not generally known for sure when PS8 will be officially announced, but many signs point to the end of September at Photoshop World. That would give Adobe a lot of bang for the buck.

Regardless of when it's announced, there's usually a delay between announcement and actual availablity, so assuming an end of September announcement, you may not be able to get your mits on PS8 until mid-late October to sometime in November (again, speculating).

The last time around Adobe offered free upgrades from PS6 to PS7 if one bought PS6 within "X" days of PS7 being announced (I don't remember what "X" was because it didn't affect me at the time). I believe the complimentary PS7 upgrade was for those who paid full price for PS6. There's no telling what Adobe will do for those who purchase PS7 at the discount price. I have my doubts that they'd discount PS7 and give away a PS8 upgrade for free. But ya never know.

All that said I'm gonna jump on the bandwagon here, too.

Unless there's a compelling reason to get PS7 soon, e.g., you have client work with a hard deadline that only PS7 can produce, I'd wait until about October 1 and see which way the chips have fallen by then. Then I'd check the Adobe website to find out the details on the PS7 to PS8 upgrade window.

If you can get PS7 w/o additional cost to upgrade to PS8, you could get PS7, get it installed and at least get your feet wet with Photoshop while waiting for PS8 to shop. Given your Elements background, it will be a much easier transition to PS than for one coming in without that experience.

Good luck... Hope this helps.
~DannyR~

[Andrew B.]

If I remember correctly, here is what happened last time. Adobe put an on their site that a new version was about to come out, and told people if they bought the current version they could get the next version for free. I have not seen this kind of announcement for PS8, yet. And we don't know what will happen this time.

If you can wait, it should be out in a month or two. If you need a substitute editor while you wait, there is always Gimp, which is free, and very powerful.

The one wrinkle is Adobe is moving toward online activation. And it remains to be seen if this shows up in Photoshop 8 worldwide. They piloted this with Photoshop 7 in Australia, I think. Not sure. And I know some people resent this kind of thing.

[chris h]

Andrew its funny that you mention Adobe are moving towards online registration when many have moved away from it i.e. Caere/Omnipage etc. I hope they get it right as online registration/activation problems are a wonderful way of annoying customers.