Everybody loves to get a great deal, but if that amazing offer on Photoshop sounds too good to be true, it probably is! Legitimate copies of Photoshop are generally only available through your Creative Cloud subscription. If you find a site offering a price which is way out of the line from that, it is most likely not a legal copy. After all, Photoshop is probably the most pirated software on the planet. The internet has made it easy, and now there are plenty of sites willing to take your money for a counterfeit copy of Photoshop. If you give these sites your credit card number, just losing your money could be the least of your troubles–you open yourself up to viruses, spyware, identity theft, and more.
How to Spot Piracy
Here are some additional pointers for spotting piracy, directly from Adobe: If an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Check a reputable retailer site to look up the market price for the software. If there is more than a 20% discount on the MSRP without Adobe rebates, then there is a significant risk that the seller is:
Trying to resell OEM bundle copies without the required hardware, Trying to resell products unbundled from an Adobe Collection or Suite, Trying to pass off an educational version of software as a full retail version, Trying to sell a counterfeit or illegal product (usually provided on CD-R) with a cracked or bogus serial number, Trying to provide an upgrade version with a counterfeit previous version as a “full” version of the current software, or Trying to resell a product stolen from a reseller or retailer.
If Photoshop is priced out of your budget, it could be that you really don’t need it. Photoshop Elements offers much of the same functionality of Photoshop, for a fraction of the price. in fact, Elements is the often the Photo Editor of choice in K-12 Educational institutions.
Student Discounts Are Real
If you have a student or educator in your household, you also might be able to qualify for reduced pricing on academic versions of Photoshop. You also might want to consider Affinity Photo and Luminar. Both are Mac-only imaging applications and are priced considerably lower than Photoshop but have a lot of the features found in Photoshop. In fact, Luminar can even be used as a Photoshop plug in. Also, don’t discount Photos from Apple and Google Photos. Both offer the ability to do rudimentary edits or apply effects to photos. both are free.
Use Your Tablet
Another free alternative could be sitting in your pocket or on your tablet. Adobe has a couple of apps- Photoshop Fix and Photoshop Mix that allow you to do some pretty interesting Photoshop work on your Android or iOS device. They even have a feature where, if you have a Creative Cloud account, you can send your image to Photoshop. When you get home the image will be open in Photoshop and waiting for you to get to work. not only that, but the image will be added to your Creative Cloud library and available for use in any of the Creative Cloud applications.
