Posted by Elaine on May 19, 2005 at 10:16:05:
In Reply to: Photoshop Warning posted by Elaine on May 18, 2005 at 06:33:45:
What have I learned from my Photoshop experience?
1. Their customer service is rude. Not all of it but some of their employees are.
2. Their license agreement may not fit your needs. The company has thus far been unyielding and rigid. They are not concerned with keeping the customer satisfied. They don’t seem to be able to distinguish between legitimate users and pirates.
3. If you take your laptop on a liveaboard or on any dive vacation where internet access is not available – don’t count on Photoshop to keep working. If you do anything known or unknown to trigger a reactivation – you might get left out in the cold.
4. Using Photoshop caused me to need to buy a whole new computer system. The true cost of Photoshop can be much more than the price of the program. I would never have the problematic “three computers” if I hadn’t gone to the professional edition of Photoshop.
5. There are many other photo editing products out there that work well on less than the biggest and fastest of computers and who have more user friendly customer support if you have a problem with their software. ACDSee has many of the features of Photoshop and in some cases, does things better and faster than Photoshop.
6. Versions of Photoshop 7 and earlier don’t require continual activation and have most of the features of CS and beyond. I was happy with Photoshop 7 and had known of the problems and irritations of dealing with the company with CS and CS2 I would have saved my money and not upgraded – for me it isn’t work the aggravation and totally unacceptable treatment from the company. In general, the less contact that I have with a software company, the happier I am and when I am treated like a criminal by a software company I don’t want any contact with them at all.
The following is from the Photoshop web site:
May I use the software on more than one computer at a time?
The activation process supports installation on two machines. The Adobe product license agreement allows the primary user to install the product on a primary computer and also on a home or laptop computer for his or her use, provided that the two copies are not used simultaneously. While the activation process supports installing and activating Adobe software on two machines, the usage of the product on the second computer is restricted to the user who licensed the software. Allowing others to use a second copy of the software violates the product license agreement.
Will I be required to reactivate Adobe software if I perform regular backups or restore my system? What about system upgrades?
Backups and restoring your system using standard tools will not require reactivation. While reactivation after backing up or restoring the system was required in Adobe® Photoshop® CS software, Adobe has continued to improve the activation process with new technology that eliminates the need to reactivate after system restoration. In complex situations where the system is being upgraded, we recommend transferring activation before commencing the system upgrade. Once the system upgrade is completed, the subsequent install/restore will require reactivation, which is typically accomplished without difficulty