# Free legal copy of Photoshop CS2



## Thaily (Jan 8, 2013)

It's "old" but still good, and now you can legally download it for free.
Also, other programs from Creative Suite, such as Illustrator and Indesign.

Article on the free download: http://gizmodo.com/5973730/grab-photoshop-and-cs2-for-absolutely-free-right-here
Location of the free download: http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html


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## RTDragon (Jan 8, 2013)

Actually it's false considering a recent news article. http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriank.../07/download-adobe-cs2-applications-for-free/
Adobe screwed up on that one.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 8, 2013)

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4974662

To give the correct rundown for tl;dr. "Ooops"

Basically, Adobe intended this for customers who still owned the CS2 suite but since the activation servers are no longer running, they posted it for them use.

They fully acknowledge that anyone else can grab the software (heard mixed results of success) and use it. 

So it's not legal, it's not free... but they are not going to pursue you for it.


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## Thaily (Jan 8, 2013)

I've heard of people who installed it and it worked, no account or previous purchase necessary.
As for legality, pretty sure they couldn't pursue it if they wanted, considering they posted it in this way.


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## Mayonnaise (Jan 8, 2013)

Man, I was about to download it. I'm not so sure now.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 8, 2013)

Mayonnaise said:


> Man, I was about to download it. I'm not so sure now.



You can download it and stuff, but it's not legal - it's not so much "piracy" - as in prosecution either- as  Adobe said so in their statement.


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## Thaily (Jan 8, 2013)

Adobe has been pretty good about piracy period, they figure that the people who don't pay for their software only use a small percentage of the functionality anyway.
And the people who use it a lot will pay, often by making their employer buy it.
I have a paid version, but I used pirated copies for a long time. I just couldn't afford it before then.


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## Ansitru (Jan 8, 2013)

It's a shame they're taking the "_Whoops, dun goofed_"-route when it does make for a great publicity-stunt.

Those who need it for work will still purchase the latest versions and the hobbyists can learn how to work with outdated version before deciding if they want to upgrade or not. 
Though it has been said that such a publicity-stunt would cost Adobe a lot of money?


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## Kalmor (Jan 8, 2013)

Just grabbed a comment from the forbes page:

"The licence terms which you agree to when you install this software say your use of the software is legal if you have â€œobtainedâ€ it from Adobe. It doesnâ€™t say â€œpurchasedâ€ or â€œboughtâ€. If they want to make it illegal, they must change the licence. Until they do, saying that itâ€™s illegal in a forum post doesnâ€™t make it illegal. It certainly appears that itâ€™s not what they intended, but thatâ€™s different."

So legal? Illegal? What's the deal here?


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 8, 2013)

Ansitru said:


> It's a shame they're taking the "_Whoops, dun goofed_"-route when it does make for a great publicity-stunt.
> 
> Those who need it for work will still purchase the latest versions and the hobbyists can learn how to work with outdated version before deciding if they want to upgrade or not.
> Though it has been said that such a publicity-stunt would cost Adobe a lot of money?



It depends while CS2 is outdated software it does have the Warp tool in its version which is handy and helpful. It has less content aware stuff, and you can't import some products/plugins like Coolorus http://www.coolorus.com/ or the Painter's wheel because it didn't have certain adobe Air or flash content type plugins.

No rotation either which has been kind of important when drawing. 

GUI is older so it doesn't have the nice tucking to the side panel interface it has in newer versions. 

Also remember CS2 is 32 bit so those that want it to take advantage of higher ram allocation for better performance are limited to 32bit specs. 

However, it has a lot of the brush dynamics mentioned in advanced tutorials and such.

I just never felt right doing commissions with pirated software - so I had to knuckle down and purchase. With the smaller programs I legitimately owned, money earned went to larger/industry programs later.


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## Harbinger (Jan 8, 2013)

Reminds me of the opening of Tron: Legacy. I really want photoshop but im too paranoid to try anyway to get it


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 8, 2013)

As far as far as I care, the links are up from Adobe so may as well. That's why I didn't delete the thread. Plus this is widespread now.


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## Kalmor (Jan 8, 2013)

Pff, I got it. Who doesn't like official free stuff?


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 9, 2013)

I thought this was a good article explaining the debacle.

http://arstechnica.com/information-...be-almost-does-something-amazing-by-accident/

Adobe doesn't seem to finalize what is going on right now because I suspect it's a "Wait and see" approach to the impact of the mistake. Sure giving away an older copy may seem generous but it may be that they're is still that "Will it hurt us financially" so rather than give an affirmative statement they're playing it cool and neutral to see what happens.

It's also more confusing since you don't even need to sign on with an Adobe ID to download CS2 either (which was the previous catch prior).


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## RTDragon (Jan 9, 2013)

I really think they should just released some of the older outdated stuff namely free since it would help a lot since most people will eventually buy the more expensive stuff or upgrade. Since many users still love photoshop. Plus i would love to try out the actual software namely Photoshop 7 if they release it.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 10, 2013)

Well like I said it's "free" but "Whoops not meant to be"

The EULA (End User License Agreement) says you must obtain (not purchase, because well it could have been a gift or other circumstances where you legally got the software) it from Adobe.

You downloaded it with serial number from Adobe's site. 

That's probably why they can't do anything about it, since the link doesn't say "you must have purchased the license to get this version" 

http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html Where is the legal disclaimer?

Even then they couldn't release all the CS2 line of products as they were discontinued.
Also all the serial numbers are going to be the same. 

Just want to add this on. You can download CS2 as Terri Stone, part of their staff says they will not come after you for it.

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4975256#4975256

_
19. Terri Stone,
Jan 7, 2013 3:06 PM   in reply to union_bug
Report

I don't think you have to worry about Adobe coming after you for this, union_bug.



As soon as our execs have approved an official statement on this issue, I or another Adobe staffer will post it here._

Basically as long as you download direct from Adobe at this time there's no problem. They're keeping out links to other places you can download it though

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4982074


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 12, 2013)

I'm bumping with some news.

The original post with Dov Isaacs has been deleted so looks like the "didn't intend to release this as free but will not do anything about it" still stands.

In addition, I tried installing this on Windows 8 as a test. It will launch the first time, but after asking for any option for registration, subsequent launches will not work. It will freeze during the menu initialization.


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## Kalmor (Jan 12, 2013)

Arshes Nei said:


> I'm bumping with some news.
> 
> The original post with Dov Isaacs has been deleted so looks like the "didn't intend to release this as free but will not do anything about it" still stands.
> 
> In addition, I tried installing this on Windows 8 as a test. It will launch the first time, but after asking for any option for registration, subsequent launches will not work. It will freeze during the menu initialization.


All's working well and good here on win7. Did you register it? I haven't and it works.


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## Arshes Nei (Jan 12, 2013)

Raptros said:


> All's working well and good here on win7. Did you register it? I haven't and it works.



Windows 7 is no problem. Strangely someone said they had problems installing it on XP.
Whether you register it or not isn't a problem.

In Windows 8 there's something going on with it that causes it to freeze up after you make a registration choice and close and relaunch the program. Subsequent launches are the same.

It could be some hidden UAC issue but I had turned UAC off, ran it as an administrator to see if I could diagnose the problem.


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## Arshes Nei (Mar 7, 2013)

Just Noting that Adobe has added some statements to their download page, but we still will hold the position that it's ok to link to downloads. 

_Adobe has disabled the activation server for CS2 products, including Acrobat 7, because of a technical issue. These products were released more than seven years ago, do not run on many modern operating systems, and are no longer supported.

Adobe strongly advises against running unsupported and outdated software. The serial numbers below should only be used by customers who legitimately purchased CS2 or Acrobat 7 and need to maintain their current use of these products. _


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## Tiamat (Mar 8, 2013)

Arshes Nei said:


> _Adobe has disabled the activation server for CS2 products, including Acrobat 7, because of a technical issue. These products were released more than seven years ago, do not run on many modern operating systems,_



See: Windows 8.


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