Want to use PS, not sure which product to purchase

[Zintrigue]

[Moderator moved from Download & Install to Account, Payment & Plan.]

I wasn't sure if I should post this in Lightroom or Photoshop, so since I haven't downloaded anything yet I came here. I tried to present my question to someone in customer service, but I got a guy named Pooja who just kept copy-pasting the website description to me. Thanks Pooja.

I'm a CS6 user to start. That in mind, I'm looking at these packages for Photoshop and I can either pay $20 a month for photoshop by itself, or $10 a month for photoshop and some lightroom nonsense bundled in. This seems too good to be true, so it probably is. Since there doesn't appear to be a trial period on this, I'm in here bothering you fine people.

Is the Photoshop in the Lightroom edition basically Elements? Or will it have the full Photoshop capabilities? 

If it helps to know what I use photoshop for, then I'm a digital painter who takes FULL advantage of advanced brush creation and manipulation. This is my priority. I'm also a photographer and a photo manipulator. I make labels and I do digital darkroom and photo restoration. I also edit PDFs in Photoshop. It's essentially my jack of all trades tool that I cannot live without.

I'm hoping the cheaper sub my ticket because $10 a month is a reasonable price. I won't pay $20 a month. In ten months, I will have paid how much it costs to obtain an outdated copy of Photoshop on ebay. 

Thanks, ladies and gents.

[Nancy OShea]

Photoshop Elements (approx $100, no subscription needed).  It's a lighter consumer version without all the bells & whistles of Photoshop.  Also Elements has a shorter learning curve.
https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html

Creative Cloud Photography Plan -- approx $10/month for 12 months, a deeply discounted bundle of software and services aimed at digital photographers. 
-- Photoshop CC and Photoshop on iPad
-- Lightroom on desktop, mobile and the web
-- Lightroom Classic (digital darkroom)
-- Portfolio website + hosting
-- Spark with premium features
-- Bridge
-- 20 GB cloud storage (upgradable to 1 TB for $10/month more).
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography.html

Creative Cloud All Apps (31 + apps & services) and Single Apps Plans
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html

Annual bundles cost less but you must commit to 12 months of service and there is a 50% early termination fee. 

If you just need Photoshop CC for a short term project,  you'll pay more per month but you can cancel anytime without penalty fees.  Monthly plan: $31.50/month. 

Hope that helps.

()__()
(='.'=)
(")_(")

[Zintrigue]

Hi Nancy. Yes, I'm aware of Elements is, and I don't want it because I need the bells and whistles. And, I can see on the website what's in the Photography plan. However, the website doesn't answer my question either. 

All I want to know is if the version of Photoshop in the photography plan is watered down like elements, or if I'm getting the full product in that bundle. Because I need the full product. Bells and whistles and all.

Thanks

[John T Smith · Accepted solution]

The special photography plan is like a 'loss leader' advertisement to get you into a grocery store to buy the items on sale, while hoping that you will decide to add other purchases... the photoshop in the special plan is exactly the same as the photoshop sold as a single product for a higher price

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

Photoshop CC is the only Photoshop version offered by subscription.  Whether you buy the deeply discounted Photography bundle or the single app plan, they are identical in every way. 

That said, a lot has changed in PS CC since CS6 came out in 2012.

Photoshop 2021 Classroom in a Book may come in handy

https://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Photoshop-Classroom-Book-release/dp/0136904734

Good luck!

[Abambo]

The Photography Plan is probably what you should head to, if you only use Photoshop and none of the other Creative Cloud apps, like Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat etc. However, as a photographer, I strongly recommend you also consider Lightroom Classic as a nice add-on to Photoshop. Basically, it is my photo database and digital darkroom and Photoshop preprocessor. 90% of my photo edits are done in Lightroom with the rest in Lightroom and Photoshop and different other filters.

As @Nancy OShea says, there is only one Photoshop CC and that is the direct successor of Photoshop CS6.

As for the $20 vs $10 subscription: The photography plan comes only with 20Gb of cloud space, which renders Lightroom (not Classic) useless as Lightroom is cloud-based.

Please look also into the computer requirements because they have changed since CS6, so be sure to have at least the recommended configuration. The minimal requirements do work, but I never recommend someone using the products regularly to stay long at that performance level.