I have a friend who has offered me a boxed copy of Photoshop 7. Is this software still viable compared to cs3 or 4? Another option for me is to go ahead and buy an academic version of Lightroom for $99 at the bookstore. Anyone have any comments or advice?

PS. I am very much a novice when it comes to post processing.

Save your money and use PS 7. Until you have more experience pp it's a great place to start. I'am still using PS 6 and it has just about everything I need although when I go mac I'll probably switch over to CS.

I am 5 years using PS7 and don't see a great need still to upgrade at the current cost to move to the latest PS version.

I use PS7 for the little photoshopping I need, or am able to do. Most of my processing goes on in Lightroom, and I edit in PS only for retouching (removing wires or supports etc).

Since I don't do any graphics arts processing to my photos, minimal retouching capabilities are adequate to my needs.

<Chas>

I started with an outdated copy of Elements 3.0 and spent more than a year playing and learning before upgrading to CS2, which was the current version of Photoshop at the time. You can certainly learn the basics from any version of Photoshop. If the price is right on PS7, I would grab it and start playing.

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Peano
RadiantPics

You can pickup a current copy of Adobe Photoshop ELEMENTS and it is a great place to start. It is an approachable package with all of the basics for a very low price. Lightroom v3 will be out soon and would be another option. If you want to invest the time and effort in the full version of Photoshop, I would not waste my time learning anything less than CS3. Make sure you check if your camera is supported by whatever version of the software you finally decide to use. You can download demos of all of these packages from the Adobe site.

I remember about 4 or 5 years ago reading articles about retouchers working for big name publications (vogue, esquire, I don't remember who, but big name stuff) who were still using ps4. I would guess that practice is not exactly industry wide, but a lot of the stuff in those early versions is still fantastic. If the ps7 is free, I'd definitely take it and start learning.

Bear in mind you will not be able to convert Raw images with it - so if this is important to you PS7 is not a good idea.

If it is free/very cheap though it would at least be a place to start - but I don't see it as a worthwhile purchase for significant cash.

It is of course though as good as it was when it came out and it was the best software available .

Am I correct in thinking that PS7 is the oldest version that qualifies for upgrading to the latest version of CS?
If you thought you might upgrade to the latest version in the future, you may want to keep a wary eye open on releases of newer versions. Not sure how far back Adobe will go in allowing upgrades.

Lotuselite wrote:
Am I correct in thinking that PS7 is the oldest version that qualifies for upgrading to the latest version of CS?
If you thought you might upgrade to the latest version in the future, you may want to keep a wary eye open on releases of newer versions. Not sure how far back Adobe will go in allowing upgrades.

Not even. The oldest version that qualifies for upgrade price these days is CS2.

<Chas>

The problem with Elements is that it really doesn't teach you much about how the full version of PS works. In the old days, PSLE was just a castrated version of the full program, so whatever you learned applied directly to the full version.
I'm still using PS7 and often prefer it to CS3 (also on the machine). If the price is right, PS7 should allow you to learn the basics and if you like it, you can always go from there.

For me, Lightroom was a game changer. At first I was kind of scared at it since it seemed really bloated, and since I was accustomed to using Photoshop. It's quite streamlined nowadays, and older versions will run well on newer computers.

In my view, CS is the 'modern era' of Photoshop, even though I used Photoshop 7 for a long time before upgrading to CS. If you plan on investing a lot of time into learning the ins and outs of Photoshop, then you should probably try to get your hands on a copy of CS with Lightroom, even if most of the upgrades from Photoshop 7 are not immediately evident. If your friend is giving you Photoshop 7 for free, then you may as well take it and use it until you save up enough money to buy a newer version. If he is trying to sell it to you, I probably would not pay more than $50 for it.

Thanks for all the input guys. I went ahead and bought Lightroom for $99 (academic). Then my buddy gave me Photoshop 7 for free. So, I've got lots to learn. Thanks for all the input. This forum is the best.

LR is great, I use it for 98% of all my editing, only occasionally using CS3.

For anyone interested in 7, it is included with the Wacom Bamboo tablet, which makes it a pretty good value.