Buying Photoshop CS5?

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BlackGlove

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Topic # 236029 14-May-2018 15:34

Soooo - the old(!) PC kicked the bucket and along with it went my copy of Photoshop CS5. I bought the computer second hand and photoshop was already installed on it, so never had the install discs etc. Now I have a new computer and I find out that lo' and behold Adobe has jumped onto the endless cash-cow that is software rental. I don't need super flash or super new, and tbh I probably don't have time to learn it anyway - I just want Photoshop CS5.

I've had a quick search and it seems that it will run okay on Windows 10. But where could I buy a copy?! Nothing on TradeMe. Anyone got any ideas?

I tried using GIMP and apart from the fact that it won't work with CMYK files (i.e. most of my old .psd files) it's not intuitive to me.

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Reply # 2015856 14-May-2018 15:44

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You might find a sealed, boxed disk copy of CS5 or CS6 from Amazon or other webstores, or possibly on Ebay, but there is no legit way to get a "new" copy of these from Adobe any more - you have to subscribe to the Cloud service.

Did you get a copy of the serial number from your previous copy by any chance?

There are other alternatives if you want to vote with your wallet - what is the primary usage?

rb99

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Reply # 2015857 14-May-2018 15:47

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affinity.serif.com possibly ?

rb99

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Reply # 2015904 14-May-2018 16:13

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I got fed up with the Adobe subscription also. Rather than bothering with finding an old and unsupported purchasable version, I switched systems. Affinity to replace Photoshop, and Luminar replaced Lightroom.

Affinity opens the .psd files fine (at least no issues so far!)

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

BlackGlove

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Reply # 2015906 14-May-2018 16:16

Did you get a copy of the serial number from your previous copy by any chance?

There are other alternatives if you want to vote with your wallet - what is the primary usage?

No, I've looked through my box of random tech junk and can't find anything, I got very little with the computer it was a student finishing up studies and heading to Europe to hide from his student loan. Served me well until the HDD died.

Mostly I use it to prep images for minor web or graphic design for my small business. The main functions I use are masking, lasso, layer opaqueness, that sort of thing.

[Affinity looks promising, I'll delve into that a bit more thanks].

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Reply # 2015911 14-May-2018 16:19

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If the hard drive is readable from an exernal USB adaptor and not utterly toast, you might be able to dig your serial out and then you could "find" some installation media online somewhere....

From here: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2383616

"If you are on a Mac navigate to:

Macintosh HD >> Library >> Application Support >> regid.1986-12.com.adobe

Inside the folder “regid.1986-12.com.adobe” you will probably find several files ending .swidtag

For example:

regid.1986-12.com.adobe_DesignSuitePremium-CS5-Mac-GM-en_US.swidtag

Look for the one related to your product and right-click (control-click) on it and choose:

Open With >> Other

Then choose TextEdit from the list of applications.

For registered products the 24 digit serial number is usually found near the bottom of the text document.

On Windows navigate to:

C:\ProgramData\regid.1986-12.com.adobe"

TLD

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Reply # 2024056 28-May-2018 17:31

You still might be out of luck, even if you find your serial number, as I doubt you'll have deactivated CS5 before the old computer died.

Downloading the installation files is no problem. All Adobe CS5 products can be downloaded from

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs5-product-downloads.html

On the off chance that you registered your copy of Photoshop, then you'd find your serial number by logging on to your Adobe account, and clicking on My Orders. There is no telephone support for CS5 products now, but if you do manage to find your serial number, drop me a line, and we'll get you to start a thread on the Adobe forums from where I can get a staff member to help you.

(I am an Adobe Community Professional, and Adobe forum moderator)

Trevor Dennis
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Lias

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Reply # 2024307 28-May-2018 21:45

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FWIW, just because the PC came with CS5 installed on it, doesn't mean it was a legitimate copy, or that you had any legal ownership of the software.

Information wants to be free. The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

TLD

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Reply # 2024352 29-May-2018 00:02

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Lias:

FWIW, just because the PC came with CS5 installed on it, doesn't mean it was a legitimate copy, or that you had any legal ownership of the software.

Hey, I missed that bit. AFAIK, Photoshop has never been legally offered as a pre-installed application, and all perpetual licenses are owned by individuals unless they came as a Student Teacher version. It was way easier to get the educational version back then. So Blackglove never owned a Photoshop License, and no one can help him/her.

I really think that the Creative Cloud Photography License is an incredible bargain at $10 a month for Photoshop, Lightroom, Bridge, Media Encoder and all the added value that comes with a CC subscription. I pay more than that for an Office 365 subscription, and the same again for Dropbox, and they get a tiny fraction of the use my CC apps get. Fortunately I get all the CC apps for free as an ACP, along with a Lynda.Com subscription, and I had the chance to work with my hero Bert Monroy at Adobe MAX in 2016 at San Diego, but I'd pay the price of a full CC sub if that was not the case.

Trevor Dennis
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mattwnz

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Reply # 2024354 29-May-2018 00:16

TLD:

I really think that the Creative Cloud Photography License is an incredible bargain at $10 a month for Photoshop, Lightroom, Bridge, Media Encoder and all the added value that comes with a CC subscription. I pay more than that for an Office 365 subscription, and the same again for Dropbox, and they get a tiny fraction of the use my CC apps get. Fortunately I get all the CC apps for free as an ACP, along with a Lynda.Com subscription, and I had the chance to work with my hero Bert Monroy at Adobe MAX in 2016 at San Diego, but I'd pay the price of a full CC sub if that was not the case.

Is it only $10? Looks to be about $16 on their website

timmmay

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Reply # 2024376 29-May-2018 07:07

You can get CS2 free and legal from Adobe - or at least you could a while back. Try downloading it here. It might not work on Windows 10.

Each license comes with about 5 activations. If you can recover the old key it might work. Do you have a backup image of your disk you could search or restore to a disk to look at?

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BlackGlove

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Reply # 2024548 29-May-2018 10:28

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Of course - I hadn't actually even considered that - the software was registered to the previous owner. Duh. The HDD is totally kaput anyway. (side note - when will hard drive recovery get cheap?!)

I've purchased both Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer and they are great, so thanks for that heads-up rb99. I had never heard of them and they are perfect for my needs. A little adjusting to get used to slightly different methods, but way more intuitive than Gimp.

Appreciate the time that all of you took in replying. Lesson learned re second-hand computer purchasing. Next time - a clean install!

Lias

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Reply # 2024578 29-May-2018 11:25

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BlackGlove:

side note - when will hard drive recovery get cheap?!

It's an incredibly specialist skill and requires filtered environments. That being said prices HAVE come down.. I got a personal recovery done a decade or so ago and it cost me over a grand (and that was at the "cheaper is better than faster" rate), I've heard you can get similar for half that now.

Information wants to be free. The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.