Photoshop on eBay

[Drifter]

I am seeing quite a few offerings on ebay for CS4 Extended for under $200 or even $100. They say unopened retail version etc. I understand the concept of "if it's too good to be true....." but I do like to make my photo dollars go as far as possible.

Is this a scam or what?

[cman78]

I know this I had a guy I work with buy a copy of lightroom on the cheap like those on ebay.

Went to register it with Adobe and it wouldn't work. He called and found out it was a stolen copy. And guess what now he can't get in touch with the people that sold it to him.

[SyCo]

No it's 99% likely to be dodgy. Adobe doesn't sell it that cheap under any legit license.

[Vedauwoo]

Originally Posted by Drifter

I am seeing quite a few offerings on ebay for CS4 Extended for under $200 or even $100. They say unopened retail version etc. I understand the concept of "if it's too good to be true....." but I do like to make my photo dollars go as far as possible.

Is this a scam or what?

I bought one of these a few years back as well....I received a "copy" of a disc in a plain wrapper with a number hand-written on the wrapper.....

Total scam....

Report them to Ebay while you're at it....

[w7apd]

Just send your money direct to me. I won't give you anything for it, and I won't send the money back, but I'll say, "Thank you."

What I'm offering may not seem like much, but I suggest will be more satisfactory (for you) than a $100 copy of CS4...

[mcbit]

Just PM me your bank account details and I'll oblige!

[Sal C]

I bought a copy of CS3 on Ebay about a year ago for half the normal price, the decription said everything was legit. While waiting for it to ship the seller emailed me saying "If you have trouble entering the serial number just contact me and I'll get you a different serial number". That started a firestorm for me. I told him to promptly return my Paypal or I'd report him. Luckily I got my money back right away. Turns out it was a Chinese pirated copy, it looked perfectly legit they (whoever) went through the troubled of duplicating everything perfectly. The printing was phenomenal including the cd itself - couldn't tell, Adobe told me this goes on quite a bit...

Beware, IMO Ebay is nothing more than a garage sale for stolen goods...

[Mithras]

If you have kids or grandkids that are in school you can get an academic version of just about any software. Academic versions are cheaper and the same thing you would pull off the shelve at your favorite sofware store. I have used Academic Superstore in the past and have been quite satisfied.

Adobe at Academic Superstore

There is a requirement to prove the student aspect of the purchase but it is pretty painless.

[roncgizmo]

I bought (used) CS3, LR 1.4 from the same person on ebay and got a GREAT deal. I didn't get the box, but I did get the real disk and Keys.

[dryadsdad]

IIRC, the terms of the EULA state that a license used as an upgrade cannot be used to run the previous product. That is, if I u/g my CS 3 to CS 4, I can't transfer ownership of CS 3 to you. The ownership is for ONE product which was upgraded. I don't know if Adobe enforce this, though.

I had a friend who bought a full price (small discount) XP from Amazon. It failed to verify. He consulted me. It was a pure pirate version perfect in its counterfeit look including hologram. He is out the money although I suggested he seek redress through Amazon. Amazon was not the vendor but the vendor's agent.

[TonyK]

That is my memory too on upgrade versions. When I switched from Windows to OS X, I had to give up my Windows license to get the cross-platform deal. It was worth it though difficult to put the PS CS discs in the shredder.

[rainer]

Glad i am reading this. I too was pondering this question. Scam or no Scam?
I figured it be more likely to be scams to be selling it for a third of ther real price. I will go for the real thing and spend extra. By the way. P. Shop C4 Extended; One surely has to take some months or even go to School to learn such a complex Program. Sure! I can handle many things on it. But" It is not the most user friendly program i met. It's like looking for a Needle in a hay Stack to find some basic functions.
Any other more user friendly programs that are packed but not in the same complex way?
Not interested in Gimp. I find the program detracts the quality of my Photos too much.

[SyCo]

Originally Posted by rainer

Not interested in Gimp. I find the program detracts the quality of my Photos too much.

How do you you mean? Gimp doesn't degrade photos at all unless you choose settings to degrade the image, such as high compression. The same is true in Photoshop. In fact Dcam noise plug in does a great job of removing the noise while preserving the quality of the image, comparable to, and sometimes better than, Noise Ninja.

Have a look at goingmanual.com. It's written for older versions of both programs and I've not updated but there are comparison tutorials for both that should still get you the basics.

[rainer]

Originally Posted by SyCo

How do you you mean? Gimp doesn't degrade photos at all unless you choose settings to degrade the image, such as high compression. The same is true in Photoshop. In fact Dcam noise plug in does a great job of removing the noise while preserving the quality of the image, comparable to, and sometimes better than, Noise Ninja.

Have a look at goingmanual.com. It's written for older versions of both programs and I've not updated but there are comparison tutorials for both that should still get you the basics.

Oh yes it does! Not in any big sense that becomes very noticable to the Eye. But" Each alteration or enhancement you do on a Phot Image does course some destruction to your original.
How ever"
Lightroom claims that their program does enhancements in a NON destructive way to the original image. That is what i was refering to. Not noise. I never mentioned image noise. I have tried Lightroom and i intend to purchase it as it definitaly shows remarkable difference in quality finish and looks to me in retaining the original image in a non destructible way. Basicaly my question still remains. Is there a similar software enhancement that allows me to do what C4 does but in a (non destructive) way?

Here is an extract from the Photoshop Lightroom
>>> Photoshop Lighroom Nondestructive photo editing Enhanced
Adjust and enhance color, exposure, and tonal curves non destructively on more than 190 camera raw file formats, as well as JPEG, TIFF, and PSD files.

[SyCo]

I've still no idea what you mean. Are you saying if I open an image, process it in some way like adjust the curves and save it, without compressing it. It will degrade in quality more than if I did the same thing in Photoshop?

[dryadsdad]

He's right about GIMP but it applies to all programs. That's why most like to work on layers because the layer edits don't affect the underlying image on another layer.

In addition, recent CS's have smart objects which are really copies of the image. All editing of smart objects is utterly non destructive of quality. In fact, you can move from smart objects back into ACR and back again as often as you wish.

[SyCo]

I'm not saying Gimp=Photoshop and recent versions has seen CS improve faster than Gimp development. If you want to use Photoshop or LR then cool, both are excellent, I love using them. break out the plastic and away you go. But Gimp has layers and, just like photoshop, if you edit a layer it doesn't affect the one underneath.

Non destructive editing refers to the changes made to the image while editing. A bit like adjustment layers and layer masks. In any layered program you can achieve the same thing. If you copy the first image layer to a second one and make changes to it you can delete the second layer and the first is unaffected. No image destruction unless you do it yourself, the program doesn't do it. Maybe this doesn't suit your workflow or style of editing and it's not the same (it doesn't suit mine) as Photoshop but it's just how the program works. I've used Gimp for 10 years but prefer photoshop (also 10 years) myself but still think Gimp is the second best to the Adobe offerings. It's not fair to bash an excellent free program because you're not sure how to use it.

If you make a non destructive adjustment in CS or LR then save it over the original file then the original is again overwritten. So I still dont understand how Gimp "detracts from the quality of images"?

[rainer]

Yes.

[rainer]

Originally Posted by SyCo

I've still no idea what you mean. Are you saying if I open an image, process it in some way like adjust the curves and save it, without compressing it. It will degrade in quality more than if I did the same thing in Photoshop?

Yes..

[SyCo]

Could you post and example for us to see. I've never heard of this before.