Photoshop for students?

Youngy798

Hey guys, I was looking at buying the Quixel suite, I was surprised at how cheap it was for students, for Photoshop.. the complete opposite.

Is there any way to get Photoshop cheaply or for free (legally)?

I don't have £10-20 spend on Photoshop every month

Thanks in advance

SuperFranky

There are good free alternatives to photoshop, look them up.

I found this site about cheap Photoshop, dunno how helpful it is http://johnlamansky.com/tech/buy-cheap-adobe-photoshop/

Youngy798

They don't work with Quixel software though

iconoplast

Unfortunately, $10-20 a month is about as good as it gets. As a student you can go with the normal $10/month for Photoshop and Lightroom or you can get the full suite for $20. (That's US pricing, UK is £7.47/15.88.) Here's all the student pricing they offer: https://creative.adobe.com/plans?plan=edu for US and https://creative.adobe.com/plans?plan=edu&store_code=gb for UK.

On the plus side, last I looked you're allowed to use the student license for commercial work for as long as you're still meeting the student eligibility requirements.

Higuy

Yes, you can use the license that is 10 dollars a month for commercial work + educational. It may be 120 a year to use but if you look at the plus side is much more cheaper than shelling out 6-700~ dollars for a full version. In reality, 10 dollars a month for an extremely amazing program is awesome.

Learning photoshop and using it is probably your best bet. It is a worthwhile investment, an industry standard, and I highly doubt that will change any time soon at all. Plus, everything you need works with it, including the Quixel Suite.

Youngy798

hmm £90 a year seems quite a lot, I will look into it. I thought it was at least £15 a month, so £7 a month doesn't seem that bad.

If it also allows commercial uses I could always put some stuff on the unity store to make some money off the investment.

Dataday

I recommend looking into Substance Designer/Painter/bitmap2material (all on steam), which doesnt require photoshop. For a photoshop replacement, depending on what you do, I generally plug Krita.org (which is free).

Ispheria

Dataday wrote: »

I recommend looking into Substance Designer/Painter/bitmap2material (all on steam), which doesnt require photoshop. For a photoshop replacement, depending on what you do, I generally plug Krita.org (which is free).

This

Youngy798

the substance stuff seems to cost a lot more than the Quixel software. I remember watching a video from a while back and substance painter looked brilliant, but I want to get good at texturing by hand before becoming dependent on software like substance painter or DdO

littleclaude

Adobe Photoshop CS2 Free
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html

Youngy798

unfortunately CS2 doesn't work with Quixel stuff

NegevPro

I would say don't worry so much about the Quixel suite right now. You should get good at texturing by hand without using any software other than your image editor before jumping onto the Substance or Quixel trains.

The Substance packages and the Quixel Suite are amazing pieces of software, but they definitely hinder your ability to learn techniques by hand because they automate a lot of the tasks that need to be done. I only say this because I'm guessing you are new to texturing since you don't already have Photoshop or one of the alternatives, if you do happen to have experience though, then I would say it's still a fair price for what you get, and like you said, selling assets on the Unity asset store can probably make up most of your initial investment back pretty quickly.

Youngy798

I only really wanted it for the normal mapping

Dataday

Youngy798 wrote: »

I only really wanted it for the normal mapping

It sounds like you are trying not to spend money, which is understandable. If thats the case, get your skills up with Krita: http://kritastudio.com/desktop.html

And use something like Bitmap2Material http://store.steampowered.com/app/325910/ to bump out normal maps.

If thats still to much you can try something like mindtex for example: http://store.steampowered.com/app/269450/

If you need it all to be free then Mapzone: http://www.mapzoneeditor.com/
It's made by the same people behind bitmap2material, substance painter/designer. In a way, its the precursor to all their commercial products.

Babysteps.

Youngy798

Thanks for the links, its nice that Mapzone has a little model viewer, viewing in the max viewport is terrible.

Ill try out mapzone for a bit

Shiniku

You can do amazing things with nothing but an outdated version of photoshop, clever bakes, and a normal map filter. Using the Quixel suite or just nDo2 may help speed p your process, but it's not going to magically change your work from bad to good. I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about getting that stuff right away, and instead focus on sharpening your skills with what you've got. I did a lot of my learning with Gimp and MilkShape3D.

Once you get your skills up to a certain point, and maybe take on some small jobs, that $10 a month for photoshop will seem well worth it

Youngy798

That Krita studio program seems good, I have seen it used before on polycount. I like gimp but for some reason it makes my tablet lag, I will draw a line and it will freeze for like half a second making it very hard to draw anything.
So hopefully Krita works well. I am going to try doing the noob challenge this month, the concepts seem quite interesting.

Shiniku

I wasn't recommending Gimp, (I would never recommend Gimp), I'm just trying to make a point that it doesn't matter a whole lot what you use at this stage of your learning. You will wnat to become proficient in the programs you will be using most often at your desired workplace, but that part is easy compared to learning the fundamental skills, which are transferable between all kinds of different programs.

Youngy798

I know, I was just saying that I used gimp before and it didn't work well with my tablet. I will give the Krita Studio software a go when I next make a model.
I agree, once you know how to make something, the software doesn't matter too much. Painting skills would translate over from Krita to Photoshop.
I am hoping to go to university and study this stuff, so that would give me the opportunity to become familiar with industry standard software.
Thanks for the help

Blaizer

Krita as free software is a very very good choice.

As cheaper apps, Open Canvas, Clip Studio Pro EX, Paint Tool Sai, etc. are very good options. Any student can afford them because they cost like a videogame, or less in sale.

JedTheKrampus

If you use Krita make sure that you enable OpenGL in the preferences. It can really make the program more responsive.