How awesome is CS5, really?

November 30, 2010 5:51 PM

First World Problems Filter: Good fortune recently shined upon me, and I won a copy of Adobe CS5 Design Premium. Help me decide what to do with it?

Background: I'm a hobbyist photographer--I'd love to have Photoshop--I've wanted it for at least ten years now and could never justify the expense. Everything else in the package--Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, etc...I don't really need, but I'm intrigued by them and would at least tinker a bit. I was into web design/graphic design when I was a teenager, and I've thought about starting a website/blog again, but haven't gotten around to it mostly due to lack of adequate tools and knowledge, and, well, inertia.

My brain says to sell the CS5 on Craigslist, and buy Photoshop on its own if I really want it...but then again, I feel like it'd be a shame to pass up the opportunity to have all these extra programs that I would never be able to buy otherwise. Should I just keep the software package and not worry about selling?

posted by litnerd to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

If you have gotten into those other things you would have done it by now. So sell that package use the money to buy Photoshop or so other program. Don't tinker excel in what you know.
posted by nomadicink at 6:05 PM on November 30, 2010

Personally I'd keep it. If you decide to get back into designing websites, you'll basically have everything you need.

Then again, this is coming from someone who uses all the Design Premium programs and is too broke to upgrade to CS5.
posted by Anima Mundi at 6:10 PM on November 30, 2010 [2 favorites]

Keep it! Want to bright those shadows and adjust the exposure in Photoshop? Maybe design a little logo for yourself in Illustrator? Add some text and make a little photo book in Indesign? Print it via Lulu, and all of a sudden you have a book...
posted by suedehead at 6:28 PM on November 30, 2010

I say sell it and buy Photoshop / Photoshop elements instead. Second hand CS4 maybe?

Honestly, many applications in CS5 suite are buggy. InDesign for example, I despise that app because it crashed so many times... while I was doing an important assignment. I had problems with Photoshop as well, speed problems mostly. It is just bloated.

And if you want to build website... dreamweaver is not THE tool for webdesign these days. What you need is a good text editor and a good CSS editor (textmate/CSSedit if you have Mac). On Windows, you can use Notepad++ and check this thread for CSS editor.
posted by bbxx at 6:30 PM on November 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

I find InDesign terrifically useful, and CS5 to be better than CS4. But, I started designing posters in Publisher when I was a young teenager and am getting a design certificate to improve my skills. If you've never actually done anything along those lines, I'd say sell Premium and just buy Photoshop. If you think you'd actually make at least a couple of sites/books/whatever, these programs are worth learning to use.
posted by SMPA at 6:35 PM on November 30, 2010

Seems like an easy question between some extra money and the ability to have access to some programs you're interested in. Only you can decide that.

Since you got it free, why not open it and play around with it. The used price is still delightfully high (and sell it on Ebay--not Craigslist. Craigslist is dominated by illegal copies that problematically lower the price of legit software).
posted by Murray M at 6:43 PM on November 30, 2010

Keep it!

I never knew how useful programs like Illustrator were until I worked in a job where I had it. And, like, suddenly I could easily design T-shirts for metafilter meet-ups and invites for my wedding.

Not that I ever did that at work, of course.

As someone who grew up poor, I understand the impulse to try to maximize profit from this kind of thing, but honestly, you won software that might very well prove useful to you if you give yourself a chance to use it. And you deserve that chance! So let yourself enjoy it.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 6:44 PM on November 30, 2010

Less ethical and upstanding people might suggest selling it and pirating a copy for yourself. Anyway, if you're just a hobbyist, you'd probably be able to do just fine with an older copy, which you can get for much cheaper.
posted by theraflu at 6:48 PM on November 30, 2010

I am SO JEALOUS of you right now. But seriously, if I won a very expensive copy of some software that I found interesting but didn't really need, like, I don't know, SuperDuperInsaneMegaQuickBooks or something, I would probably sell it and buy a lower-level version like QuickBooksFromTwoYearsAgo and keep the change. CS5 Design Premium is probably overkill for you if you're unlikely to make full use of it, or even 50% use of it.
posted by Gator at 6:49 PM on November 30, 2010

Keep it. Tinkering is how you gain skills. Skills are how you get jobs down the road.
posted by sonic meat machine at 7:33 PM on November 30, 2010

Make sure your computer can even run CS5 before you start worrying about whether or not to sell it. I know mine cannot - I'm running CS3 and that's an occasional stretch for my poor old machine; at my last nonprofit job we maxed out at CS2. It's a huge resource hog. If it won't run happily, sell it and buy an older version: win/win!
posted by mygothlaundry at 10:17 PM on November 30, 2010

As long as your computer can run it effectively, keep it. Install only Photoshop for now and experiment with it.
One caveat...CS5 is a bloated mess that installs crap that you don't really need...Bridge, Mini-bridge, Device Central, Extensions Manager, Application Manager, etc. There's no way around a lot of it.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:27 AM on December 1, 2010

You can download a free 30 day trial of each of those programs if I remember correctly. It may be worth playing around with it for a month and deciding if you want to keep your winnings or sell. That way you haven't opened it if you decide to sell after a month.
posted by halseyaa at 7:59 AM on December 1, 2010