Direct Download All Official Adobe CS4 and CS3 Free Trials

[UPDATE (5/7/2012) – If you'd like to download new CS6 directly see our full set of links.]

Even though Creative Suite 6 is out and is a phenomenal release, some folks still need the earlier versions for various reasons: 32-bit vs 64-bit (e.g., After Effects and Premiere Pro), compatibility with other software or systems owned, the rest of your class or company is still on CS4, you need to reinstall but no longer have your original disks or download file, etc… But this older software is now hard to find – Adobe doesn’t publicize or provide a web interface for it. So if you’ve been searching high and low all over the Internet to find the official Adobe trial downloads for CS4 or CS3, well your search is over!

Below are two tables for CS4 trial downloads in major languages. These links go to the auth­entic and original CS4 files residing on Adobe’s servers, are guaranteed genuine and will not change. For Windows, each program consists of two files, an .exe and a 7-Zip file (.7z). The .exe file will only work once the .7z package is fully down­loaded and resides in the same location. For the Mac, it’s just a single .dmg file for each program.

There are also optional “extra content” downloads included here for most products that consist of one or two additional files, which you can install separately after the main product is installed.

Note: Very Important Instructions

You need to have a free Adobe account and be logged into it to use the links below, as Adobe sets a session cookie on your browser that allows you to access the direct download links. Otherwise, you will receive an “access denied” or “resume your download” message prevent­ing the connection. So please follow these instructions carefully or the links will not work!

0. Adobe recommends temporarily turning off any surfing restrictions you might have running, like site or cookie blocking, firewalls or antivirus software.
1. Click «here» to visit this page like you want to try Photoshop CS5.1, and then select the “Download Now” button at the bottom.
2. If you already have an Adobe ID, then please sign in with it (checking “Remember me“), otherwise take a minute to create one for yourself.
3. Wait a moment and then close/cancel any download windows that pop up for the trial of Photoshop CS5.1 (you can do a full trial for it later).
4. Now that you’re logged in at Adobe with the trials cookie set, you can instantly download any of the software below. Just make sure you have plenty of disk space available.
5. Download the files either by clicking directly on the DDL links, or by right-clicking and choosing “Save Link As…” on the popup menu – and save all files to the same place.
6. Then follow the product installation instructions here.

Creative Suite 4 – Adobe CS4 Downloads

And for other countries, here are the CS4 trial download links for most Western European languages – which can include French/Français, German/Deutsch, Dutch/Nederlands, Danish/Dansk, Finnish/Suomi, Swedish/Svenska, Norwegian/Norsk, Italian/Italiano, Portuguese/Português, and Spanish/Español:

We suggest using a browser other than Internet Explorer to download any of the files above. They can be quite large and sometimes IE has difficulty with the file or the download. Using Firefox or Chrome will work better. IE has also been known to drop the extensions (.exe and .7z) from the filenames, so you may have to restore or rename them back.

Creative Suite 3 – Adobe CS3 Downloads

Here are the links for the official CS3 trials in English, all downloaded from Adobe servers. For CS3 on Windows, there are almost no .7z files; usually it’s only .exe files. For the Mac, it’s all .dmg files. All other instructions remain the same as for CS4 above.

If you’re looking for CS2, CS, or an even earlier release, you can try digging around on Adobe’s FTP server for older products (but that’s really only for advanced users).

It is strongly advised not to use unknown sites or sources to download Adobe software, as increasingly these files are being used to deliver viruses and trojans onto users’ computers.

Did these links work for you? Hope they helped you out; please let us know in the comments below… And please see our companion page if you want the direct download links for all CS5.5 products.