Now that Adobe no longer sells CS6 applications, you can get Photoshop only through a paid Creative Cloud membership. The king of Adobe software is, of course, Adobe Photoshop. Still, I’ve included information on how to get current versions, how to know the difference between the two versions of Lightroom, some non-subscription alternatives, and whether you should consider the second-hand market. After CS6 went off the retail market in 2017, the choice became clear only because almost all Adobe pro applications became available exclusively by subscription. This led to confusion about which version to get, especially as Adobe began to hide the perpetual license options.

How to get Photoshop and other Creative Cloud applications todayīetween 20, some Adobe professional applications were available by both subscription and perpetual licenses. If you read an earlier version of this article that talked about how to buy CS6 without a subscription, I’ve now had to bring this article up to date to account for Adobe taking CS6 completely off the market. They are now available only as part of a paid Creative Cloud subscription. Many Creative Cloud applications have a Single App subscription option in case you don’t want to pay for them all. Creative Suite 6 no longer available at retail as of January 9, 2017Īs of January 9, 2017, Adobe Creative Suite (CS6 or earlier) perpetual license applications such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Adobe After Effects are no longer available for sale from Adobe (see below). With Adobe Creative Cloud and some other newer applications, you maintain your license to use Adobe software and services by paying a subscription fee every year or every month, as you might with Netflix or Spotify. The older way to pay for software is called a perpetual license, because you buy the license once and it doesn’t expire. ( Update: As of 2019, nearly all Adobe professional software is now available only through a Creative Cloud subscription.)įirst let’s make sure we understand the two common types of software licenses for consumer single-user software.

If you want Adobe software but you don’t want to pay a regular subscription fee, do you still have options? Depending on what you need, the answer is “maybe”…although as of 2017, the non-subscription options from Adobe are fewer than ever. The Adobe transition to a subscription-based business model has been successful by many measures, although it doesn’t meet everyone’s needs.

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