Creative Suite advice needed

[Colin Zeal]

A friend and I are looking into buying some packages for use on making the football fanzine we co edit. We need something that has both Indesign and Photoshop and we are informed that Creative Suite meets this requirement. What I would like advice on is if this is the best package avialble, or if not then what is. Also need help on where best to buy this from and likely prices. The only thing we've seen has been around the £1000 mark and I was wondering if this is the standard price or if it can be done cheaper.

thanks

[skurvy]

You can get different versions of Creative Suite. You probably want Creative Suite Design Standard . If you know anyone with a student card you can buy the education version which is about a third of the price. You can get the education version on ebay for about £350 new.

[Banners]

Hold fire for a week-or-two and you'll get InDesign CS5.5.

You'll also need Illustrator if you do much with InDesign, so getting the Design Standard Suite makes sense.

A newly-announced option is to subscribe to Adobe software rather than buy it outright. This may work out cheaper in the short-term - the Adobe Store is showing just £62.46 for a year's subscription - though I confess I don't know much about this, so that price is probably not right(!)

[Banners]

(Ah, that subscription price is per month for a year).

[Jim_Campbell]

This may work out cheaper in the short-term - the Adobe Store is showing just £62.46 for a year's subscription - though I confess I don't know much about this, so that price is probably not right(!)

No, that's right, but it's £62.46 per month for a year's subscription, and there's a penalty for early cancellation. If you want to rent month-to-month it's ~£95 per month.

Why you would do this when less than a minute on Google turns up what looks like a far more attractive leasing option I have no idea.*

Cheers

Jim

*Note: I'm not recommending this specific leasing plan, merely that it's an option worth looking into!

[radiator]

If it's just for a fanzine, then is there any need to buy top of the range software?

I know Gimp is a free alternative to Photoshop, and there is presumably a free InDesign equivalent out there...

[IndigoPrime]

It depends what you need, though—GIMP is to Photoshop what a 1990s Nokia handset is to an iPhone.

[Colin Zeal]

thanks for the advice folks. As for why do we use such expensive kit? well, we always have and want to carry on doing it. It's only the best for our readers.