Nevermind, No Free Downloads of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, & CS2
Update: Adobe apparently made some sort of error, and is not actually giving away any CS2 software for free. Here is what they have to say on their Community Forums:
On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated …
You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2!
What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don’t require activation but do require valid serial numbers are available. (Special serial numbers are provided on the page for each product download.)
Instead, you should probably just get the best PS alternative around, Pixelmator, or download Gimp for free which is pretty capable too.
If you have an older Mac you’re in luck, because the entire Adobe Creative Suite 2 is available for free, including Acrobat, GoLive, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premier. Keep in mind that Adobe Creative Suite 2 (CS2) is dated from 2005, but if you have an older Mac (or Windows PC) that can support the old versions they’re actually very capable apps and for the most part aren’t too different from the gazillion dollar versions offered today. Here is all you need to do to download the apps:
- Create an Adobe account
- Head over to the Adobe download page and grab Creative Suite 2 apps for free
- Log into your Adobe account to get the serial number
Note this only works for older versions of Mac OS X that have Rosetta PPC support, meaning OS X 10.6.8 or earlier. Adobe is more specific is suggesting they only work for later versions of 10.2 to 10.4 but they will run in any version of OS X with Rosetta installed. Unfortunately that means OS X Lion and Mountain Lion users aren’t so lucky to get CS2 for free.
Update: Adobe’s site is getting hammered by all the attention this is getting and is often down, check back and refresh their download page from time to time and you should get through ok. The impatient can also check out a Slickdeals page which has direct download links to all of the disk images and installers.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in from Gizmodo
Lawl
Does not work for mac lion, fyi
It is free only for people that have already a license…
From slickdeals:
“On behalf of Adobe Systems Incorporated …
You have heard wrong! Adobe is absolutely not providing free copies of CS2!….”
It may work on Snow Leopard, but it was put in the incompatibility list by Apple. I haven’t tried it on Snow Leopard because I got CS3 and later CS5.5 on my Intel Macs.
Just an FYI for what kind of Macs this works on:
– ALL PPC Macs
– Intel Macs running OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or earlier with Rosetta installed
Also almost all Windows PC’s pre-Windows 8 will run this. Obviously a better deal for Windows users but this is still pretty cool for us with Macs running older OS versions still.
People can also check out Inkscape (inkscape.org) which is a very nice program for vector graphics similar to AI. It will import AI files and can write SVG files which are compatible with AI.
Except the download site is and has been down for a while now. Apparently, this was a popular idea.
Try the SlickDeals direct links instead, they all work if you are having trouble connecting to Adobe’s site.