Adobe offering Creative Suite 2 for free, but they didn't mean to

Earlier this week Adobe made a surprise move by putting its Creative Suite 2 software, as well as individual programs like Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2, up for download on its website along the corresponding serial numbers. Initially it was...

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So the cs2 of yesteryears is "free" but the most recent cs6 cloud is still priced 49.99$/month?

Sry you pako, you get free fully functional version of high quality soft, but not satisfied? What are you? Super graphic hero? If so, BUY the newest version.
Really like people like you...

Very nice. If this is truly intentional I do see it as a way to try the CS series software (even if it is older) legitimately without any strings attached.

I think it's a promotional gimmick just like ea which offered free download of ra and ra2 (which run fine on windows 95/98/2k/xp on lower resolutions)

Sweet, bye Paint.net.

Its still up because existing customers still need it to be up, and since many customers don't register then Adobe can't do this 'behind the scene'.

Are we sure they haven't put a "30 day crap out" trial shut down script in this puppy? OK, so I'm paranoid and I look gift horses in the mouth. Other than that I'm a nice guy!

In any event, CS-2 is 32 bit. All their current offerings run under x64, even "Photoshop Elements 11" (I think they're on version 11).

This move on Adobe's isn't entirely unprecedented. Photoshop Elements, in its very early stages was a two part program. What became the PSE "Organizer" section of Elements, was "Adobe Photoshop Album" (Last offered in conjunction with PSE-2). Photoshop Album became a free offering, albeit loaded with ads for PSE. When they discontinued support for it, they made the organizer section of PSE-8 a freebie. You needed to download the trial version of PSE-8 and allow it to expire. The editor section no longer functioned after 30 days, but the organizer did.

In any event, it's highly doubtful if CS-2 will now be provided with update packages for RAW camera files. If you want to work in RAW, you might need an older DSLR. Every generation and brand of camera has a different RAW file format, all the way down to model specific.

In any event, Photoshop CS-2 is far superior to any of its contemporaries, along with perhaps many of today's programs as well. It includes "Adobe Bridge", a top notch, but memory hungry, file manager. If you have an old XP 32 bit box for it laying around, this is the best deal in imaging software I've ever seen.

I am curious though, if a version of PS this old, will light up more than one CPU core. I guess we'll see.

No such thing as a free lunch.

Normally I'd agree with you, but what if the lunch was 8 years old?

You can get CS6 for basically half-price off ebay, legit, unopened boxes of the software, meaning there's no reason to buy one from Adobe. I'd guess they just stopped caring about CS2. The version they're allowing you to download is the standard version, not the premium version. I don't know where the idea came from that they didn't mean to do this.

Good move by Adobe. Why use one of those half-baked open source programs like Gimp or Inkscape when you can have the real deal? After ppl learn their software they'll be addicted for life.

I think you missed the point of the "CS-6 Cloud". It's every CS-6 application, not just CS-6 Photoshop.

Granted the individual app rental prices suck, and many, (most), people don't need the whole suite.

There are other factors to consider. For most people, it is a conceit to have Photoshop itself. The PSE editor is very robust, and based in PS anyway. Adobe cripples the PS editor somewhat, they surely don't reinvent the wheel for it. So, version by version, PSE receives PS editor's "hand me downs", as they expand the features in thier flagship image editor.The editor section of today's version of Photoshop Elements, is approaching the capability of PS CS2. anyway. What it lacks primarily, is the ability to edit in lab color and CMYK . So, unless you're sending your work to a lithographer, you have no need for those features.

I think this is a GOOD move by Adobe. There are probably a lot of people, who would love to learn photoshop, but do not want to take the multi-thousand dollar plunge. This way, they could learn on an older version (which has many of the standard features of even CS6), and then after learning, could purchase a more current version. Also, instead of buying a new version, then figuring it isn't worth the learning curve and being out hundreds of dollars, they would find less of a reason to pirate it.

I Like it NFM

Well I still run the CS2 package at work to design signs, and it works just fine. Even will use the 2nd core on my aging Athlon 64 x2 4200+ CPU.
Now on my wish list to the boss is a computer upgrade, 64bit Win7, and newer version of CS, but for now CS2 gets the job done fairly well.

"Adobe later clarified that in order to legally use CS2 users still require a purchased license"

Maybe y'all missed this part.

And then again, maybe we didn't.

So if you're going to use it for commercial purposes you should buy a license. If you're a hobbyist or student it looks like they don't care. Like M$ has a non-commercial version of Office.

I really think it's a marketing ploy because if everyone can get adobe products running in their machines they will be less inclined to use the competition then once they are addicted they will invest into the cloud or save up for the big investment!

I installed them and with already using cs4 and cs5 before cs2 is pretty behind the times but with people who have nothing it?s really better than what most of the open source programs offer.

Indeed they are. Photoshop and Photoshop Elements both offer "adjustment layers". I haven't seen freebies that offered anything like them. I'm not sure how to edit an image without them.

Anyway, "assuming" you can get the correct, "Camera RAW" plug in for your cameras, then PSCS-2 or PSE-5 are all you need.

Adobe only coughed these up because they don't want to rework them for Win 7 +8, nor are they willing to update them to run correctly under x64. That's the "marketing ploy". But, I'd call it, "customer herding, willfully, and with malice aforethought".

That said, there are plenty of XP rigs out there, just dying to get their grubby old hard drives on these programs.

In any event PSE-5 runs fast, and offers plenty of editing power for the average bloke, (or blokette, if you will). So, that's the gem everybody seems to be missing. It offers organization and tagging also.

Once upon a time, these early PSE versions were offered as value added software with photo hardware, such as printers and scanners. (Perhaps the newer PSE versions are as well. I just haven't been in the market for hardware for a while).