Adobe Photoshop 7 - is it worth buying used?

$600 is too much and Photoshop CS has that product activation shit, and I know how Microsoft and Macromedia don't like it when people call 'em saying they had to reinstall (indeed, Macromedia will not let you do squat as the license is tied to the machine it's installed on, so they can go cheney themselves...)

But I digress as I am wont to do.

I can get an original CD with serial # of Photoshop 7 Full Edition for $200.

Would you buy it?

Thx!

Completely verify the license first. If an upgrade has been purchased to CS for that license, then it may no longer be exactly a "legal" license. You could still install it, but it wouldn't be entirely honest :).

HOWEVER, if no upgrade has ever been purchased, you could buy the Photoshop 7, and if you decided to later, buy the upgrade package to CS for a deep discount.

The selling transaction is legally perfect, therefore at that moment the buyer has a valid license for the software. The foul play comes afterwards, on the part of the seller (he had to destroy all copies and didn't).

Of course, all of the above may be wrong because the law sucks and it's unfairly tilted towards copyright holders (which it is, but I don't know about this particular situation).

A related question. If I have some legally acquired (non-free) software and someone copies it without my knowledge (say, by scribbling the serial number on a piece of paper while I'm not looking) and is later caught, do I lose the license or can I claim the unlawful copying happened without my knowledge or authorization? This has to happen a lot with corporate licenses.

so I have a bit of knowledge, I don't claim to be an expert.

First part - if you own a license to a version of software and buy an upgrade to a newer version, your license for the older version is no longer valid, that's why you get a discount on the upgrade, you give up the rights to the older license when buying the discounted newer license. For instance, if your company owns a PS 7 license, and buys an upgrade to CS, they can NOT have PS 7 installed on one machine and CS on another, as the 7 license is no longer valid.

Second part - If your license number is used illegally by anyone else, you maintain the rights to the original license. This does happen with corporate licenses quite frequently (most notably with the initial release of Windows XP, as the corporate CD key does not require activation, MS caught onto this overusage of a key though and invalidated the key by not allowing XP users using that key to download further updates).

If he registered it in his name and then sold it, that might be an issue.

Given the frequency of PS7 titles on ebay...

a ahem er trial version. Couldn't justify the price. I settled on Jasc Paint Shop Pro. Good software, good price. If you need to use photoshop for work or for other specific reason, then it probably is worth it. If not, there are cheaper alternatives that are quite powerful.

$13. It's harder to find tutorials but PSP is more powerfull than I'll ever need.

...all the time.

free baby free.

I don't recommend Paint Shop if you've used Photoshop before, as it's user interface is absolutely pathetic, and you'll be doing nothing but cursing it because you can't find all the usual tools quickly.

It's good if you need something, but aren't an "experienced" Photoshopper.

PS7 won't buy you much over 6, and not much more over 5.5. If you already own any of those. Any of the above are a huge step up from PS 5.0 or earlier just for their ability to correctly use color profiles. PS 6 has a HUGE bug in handling importing .EPS files, and to my knowledge was never patched. PS 6.5 corrected this, however.

I'd check ebay to see if you couldn't get it cheaper than $200, in any case.

I think it's about $100.

I will go for Elements until the main program is cheaper.

Most of my work is with enhancing photographs.

And I have several photoshop plug-ins that Elements should be compatible with...

Get it off IRC!

You can BUY Photoshop?

:shrug: