Which Photoshop® and how do you get Photoshop® CS3 Extended?
There are many different Photoshop versions. Now that Adobe has made Photoshop a formal brand, they have an entire product line ranging from the most basic online Photoshop Express to the most capable and expensive Photoshop CS3 Extended.
It is important to have the right tools for the task. But it is important to know about the other versions of Photoshop so you don’t get the others by accident. It is important to be clear that you need Photoshop CS3 Extended. There is the new online only version named at the time of recording this video Photoshop Express. Anyone can upload images or a set of images and do some very basic image amateur images improvements.
The other free access to a photoshop product is using the Adobe Photoshop Album Starter edition. This allows one to manage and organize images and run simple improvements, like removing red eye, color transformation and fixing exposure. Also via the internet it provides access to other imaging services, printing, sharing and so fourth.
The three other Photoshop product that can make this issue confusing are, Photoshop Elements now in its 6 version, Photoshop Lightroom which is targeted to professional photographers, and Photoshop CS3, the non-extended version.
Elements can be purchased as a stand-alone box but also is included in some consumer equipment, like scanners, Wacom tablets, cameras, and printers. It has versions for pc and Macintoshes. Moreover, as a little brother to Photoshop CS3 it can accomplish quite a lot of image work. But it is limited. For technical image processing it is not enough.
Adobe Lightroom is a different beast. I have had the opportunity to use it for my personal photography and it is quite impressive. But those benefits that are directed mainly to Photographers technical needs of organizing, improving and sharing images. It does not have the capability to work with images the way researchers do: adding annotations, working with composites and layers.
Adobe Photoshop CS3 is the full version of Photoshop. It just doesn’t have the additional features found only in Extended. It doesn’t have the built in analysis features. It doesn’t natively support the DICOM file standard. It doesn’t fully support animation which does come in handy when communication a series of images. And possibly less important it doesn’t 3D support.
Now you know what you don’t want lets get you what you do need.
As a scientist in some organization, we are hesitant to go out and drop 1000 to get Photoshop. The fact is large organizations the IT departments refuse to implement new versions of software until they are forced to. Depending on your organization size and software purchasing requirements it can be easy or impossible to get the newest most capable version of Photos.
I truly believe that CS3 Extended is well worth the initial disruptions and aggravation to get.
Lets go over some ways to acquire a legal license for Photoshop.
1) The first and easiest is if your organization has a site license for CS3 and all you have to do is place an order internally and IT will auto load the software onto you computer over a network or send a IT person to install it in person. If this is the case what are you waiting for? Get the approval and enter into the world of today.
Many scientists aren’t lucky enough to work for such an enlightened and progressive company. And also there is a need to control costs so restricting or having limitations in place so everyone having every possible tools is a financially sound decision.
2) The second is to purchase the software in a box with the associate license for your use. This is nice because you have the physical CD and associated material like accompanying training and additional accoutrements. You may have conduct the install yourself. In general this is easy and we will walk though it in this training.
3) The third way to get Photoshop come into play if there are restrictions in place to prevent purchasing “unapproved software” This is going though hardware vendors and including Photoshop with another acquisition. Easier if you a purchasing a entire turnkey imaging system. To get the addition cost approved. Not really possible if management still denies the purchase.
4) The fourth and least desired method is to spend the money and purchase a personal copy that you also use for work. If all you need is an upgrade. That is less expensive than the full version. But once you acquired a full version the upgrade are about 1/3 the cost. When I had to purchase the software personally, I upgraded alternation versions.
5) If you are in academia there is reduced education pricing.
In some organizations you may need to provide justification of the Photoshop CS3 Extended purchase. There are some general suggestion I have. But if you can demonstrate how it will help in a specific project or program, management usually responds better.
Photoshop will
1) Expand capabilities to interact and process valuable image data
2) The proper use of Photoshop can convey information quicker and more effectively
3) Photoshop can increase the speed of image processing via actions ( macros) and built in scripts
4) A huge reservoir of training and education support is available
5) Photoshop is very inexpensive for the value it provides
6) Modest hardware can run it well
7) Ultimately it is the market leader and if you are serious working with image you need PSP. It is an important general image processing tool to have in your toolkit.
8) Photoshop is from a stable and proven software company
Now that you made all these promises let’s give you the understanding to back them up.