Will I EVER Have Photoshop?
Abstract:
I'm running out of ways to get it
legally.
Body:
I recently began a mission to scan all of our
family photos at 300 dpi to preserve them digitally on the computer, where they
can be easily backed up and organized. Many of the older photos are scratched
and the colors have faded, and the albums themselves have not always been kind
to the prints. For the ones that go beyond iPhoto's editing capabilities (iPhoto
'05 is a wonderful upgrade by the way), I want to fix them in Adobe Photoshop.
My current version of Photoshop is 5.0.2, and lacks features such as the healing
brush that would help to restore these old pictures, and the ability to deal
with non-square pixels which would help with my video work. Also, it only runs
in Classic, and tends to freeze up on layer
effects.
I decided to finally suck it
up and buy Photoshop CS, which runs about $300 with educational discount. To get
the discount, I had to purchase it through an authorized education software
reseller, which severely limited my options, and didn't include any of my usual
sources. I decided to order from JourneyEd.com, where I had ordered Photoshop
for my sister last year. I know I could just install her copy, but I'm a good
citizen, and there's a very good chance that we would both try to run Photoshop
at the same time while connected to the same network, and I don't want to have
to deal with that.
Anyway, I placed the
order for Photoshop after electronically verifying my status as a student. The
item was listed as $299.98, and I went with the cheapest shipping charge of $17.
That's right, I still had to pay for shipping on a $300 order. I was taken to
the order confirmation screen which listed these prices, but the order number
and grand total fields were left blank. I let it go, and waited for the
confirmation email. I didn't have to wait long to receive not one, but
two
confirmation emails, each from a different address! The best part is, while the
order number was the same (I didn't order two copies), one email listed shipping
as $17, and the other said that the shipping was free. The grand total,
displayed in bold red text at the bottom of each message, differed by $17 in the
two emails. I was a bit worried that their ordering system was flawed, but I
really wanted Photoshop, so again, I just let it go and patiently awaited a
shipping notice, which I expected soon since the product had an estimated ship
time of less than 24 hours.
A few days
passed, and I received no notification. I checked the order status online, and
it had changed from "waiting for management" to "waiting for customer." I called
them the next business day, and explained my situation to the woman, telling her
about the two emails, the order status, and the fact that the item was now
listed on the website as selling for $30 less, so I had no idea how much I would
be charged. The representative calmly informed me that I couldn't buy it since I
had already ordered one. I then remembered that I had ordered my sister's copy
in my name because I had a student ID and she didn't yet, so I accepted the
answer, but I don't appreciate JourneyEd's actions. The "Purchase Requirements"
section of their Photoshop page mentions an academic ID, but says nothing about
the one copy limit. Whatever. But then why did they let me order it? Again,
whatever, their computer system sucks. What really bugs me is that instead of
calling or emailing me, they just put the order out in "waiting for customer"
land, which is some sort of order purgatory. Who knows how long they expected me
to wait until calling them. Anyway, I told the representative to cancel my order
and I hung up.
I then asked my sister
to return the favor and order a copy for me. She went through the order process,
and provided what she thought was necessary to verify her academic status. When
I asked her to check on her order, it too had been labeled "waiting for
customer." She called, and they asked for her letter of acceptance because her
ID wasn't dated. Again, the fact that they waited for her to call them instead
of the other way around is ridiculous. Anyway, within a couple days she received
a shipping notification, and I was happy. Until
today.
I got back from New York to find
that the package had arrived from JourneyEd. Tonight I opened the shrink-wrapped
Adobe Photoshop CS for
Mac box to find a manual and CD for
Illustrator CS for
Windows. Wonderful. I must be fair and say
that this is probably not JourneyEd's fault. While the box is clearly for
Photoshop, the UPC label is for Illustrator. Now I have to decide if I should
contact JourneyEd or Adobe first. Both only offer support M-F, so in either case
I'll have to wait until Monday, when I'm
supposed
to be concentrating on driving to Baltimore.
Ugh.
This has nothing to do with
Photoshop, but I don't want to be one of those people who uses his blog to talk
about his cats, so I'm writing this here. Potter, who never goes in my room,
just walked in, picked up one of my socks, and took it out of my room. It's a
dress sock, so I won't need to find it until Thanksgiving.
Posted: Friday - January 21, 2005 at 11:30 PM