I’ve been debating and debating upgrading my Adobe Creative Suite.  In days gone by, you could upgrade to the new version without having the most recent version – I think you could be 2 versions behind and still pay upgrade pricing.  That changed about a year or so ago and now you have to be current to get the special pricing – otherwise you start from scratch, price wise.

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Since I have CS5 and not 5.5, I would have had to pay about $775 to upgrade to CS6.  I’ve been putting it off since I have so much going on and I wasn’t ready to make the investment.

Of course over the past few months as I’ve been debating the upgrade, I’ve been hearing about the new Creative Cloud program from Adobe – it’s a great way to stay current, get upgraded features between new releases and spread out the cost of the software.

Here is what the Creative Cloud is, straight from Adobe’s site:

Adobe® Creative Cloud™ is an ongoing membership that lets you download and install any of the Adobe Creative Suite® 6 desktop applications, plus other applications including Adobe Photoshop® Lightroom® 4. You also get online services for file sharing, collaboration, and publishing. Best of all, you get the latest apps and features as soon as they’re released — giving you the freedom to create anything you can imagine.

If you have Creative Suite 3 or higher, you can join the Creative Cloud* for $29.99/month instead of $49.99/month if you sign up before August 31st – that’s this Friday.

I just downloaded version 6 of Photoshop, Illustrator, inDesign, Dreamweaver and Acrobat Pro.  I have access to more but figured I’d start with what I already use then explore my other options.

I encourage you to take a look at this option NOW while the price is reduced – these are the standard software programs in the art licensing industry so get the deal while you can!

Here’s to your creative success!

– Tara Reed