Hard to believe, but today Adobe Photoshop officially celebrates its 30th anniversary (or birthday, depending on how you look at it)… The first version of Photoshop shipped on February 19th, 1990, at a price of US$895.00. Adjusted for inflation, in today’s dollars that would cost over $1,800! And as recently as 2012, customers paid $699-$999 to get Photoshop. Today, of course, there are tens of millions of users of Photoshop who can now pay $10 a month for the latest-and-greatest release of this iconic, industry-leading tool.

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[IMPORTANT NOTE – Adobe stopped selling CS6 entirely several years ago – here’s why… So the CS products are not being made by the company, nor legitimately for sale through any channel in any country, from any vendor or reseller.]

Some folks think it might be a good idea to try to save a few bucks and buy Adobe software off of eBay, Craigslist, Amazon Marketplace, or from any vendor or seller who is unfamiliar.  It could be Creative Cloud, CS6, Photoshop, Lightroom, Acrobat, Elements, or any other title – in a retail, student, full or upgrade version… or sometimes it’s the “OEM” scam, or the plausible-sounding “extra” volume/enterprise license swindle, or an illegal black or “gray market” import.

But it’s actually not a very good idea at all.  Why?

The first problem is that Adobe does not recognize these venues as valid or authorized resellers, they are fully disregarded and invalid. So as a result, Adobe will not officially recognize any of those buyers as actually owning their software. Yes, you read that right.

Meaning, you think you own the genuine article but effectively you don’t. You cannot provide an accepted proof of purchase – so you can’t formally prove you own the products. You may not be able to transfer the software to someone else, nor be able to get product support or upgrade to the next version, etc…  You also aren’t able to return the software to get your money back from Adobe like you normally can.

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Let’s face it, Adobe’s traditional product prices seemed expensive over the years, espe­cially if you’re on a student’s budget. The last perpetual version available, Creative Suite 6 from 2012, historically had full prices ranging from $399 for Dream­weaver through $999 for Photoshop Extended and on up to $2,599 upfront for the Master Collection suite, which contained all CS6 applications. As cool and powerful as this software was, it’s hard to afford when you’re in school – even after the student/teacher discount.

Adobe stopped selling CS6 several years ago, as the version reached EOL and end of support – but fortunately the company still offers deep discounts for education customers on the latest CC release. A few years ago, in fact, they increased the discount on Creative Cloud to up to 70% off the regular prices. And while there are a lot of misconceptions about CC, the main products like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, etc., still download and run on your desktop as normal.

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With over 22 million paid members for Creative Cloud and growing, we often get this question from readers: “What’s a good book to get started with the most popular Adobe tools?” While there are a lot of great CC books for sale on Amazon, why not begin with an excellent title that’s available to everyone for free, and that you can download instantly?

Over the years, we’ve compiled a collection of over 30 free books that you can download and use for learning all of Adobe’s different creative tools… But there’s one volume that always stands out as a favorite – and even better, it has just been republished in a brand new expanded edition for the CC 2021 tools.

So if you’re just getting going with (or would like a solid primer covering) the core Creative Cloud design tools, then what better than a step-by-step guide that will teach you the essentials of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Adobe XD from the ground up?

So here it is: the very helpful “Adobe Design Basics” that will give you all of this for free, courtesy of author Professor Thomas Payne… The book works by intro­ducing and explain­ing the tools in a logical way that builds upon what is previ­ously learned. These applica­tions present a vast array of buttons and gadgets that can be over­whelming to the new user. This book makes sense of it all, not showing how every­thing works, but instead giving a found­ation and a path to learn about all those controls and what they can do for you.

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