Adobe After Effects CS5 Mac, Non-profit $65 offer question…

[Brad Bussé]

Is that offer directly from Adobe? If so, do you have a link? Also, does Adobe have NGO pricing for the Production or Master Suite?

Yes, it’s definitely worth the $, but you’ll need to invest the time as well to learn the workflow. Things like cropping an image are handled differently than FCP or Photoshop, as is nesting (which is pre-composing in AE), there’s no grouping like in Photoshop–you have to precomp, but then you have to make sure that the pre-comps have a high enough resolution to not get cropped. Hmm, I just realized that you could use pre-comping as an alternative method for cropping, but it’s not preferred since you’d lose a lot of control. Anyhow, it definitely requires some time and effort to learn, but it’s well worth it.

[Kevin Camp]

yep, it’s well worth the $65, and you should invest in at least some beginner training… either a book/dvd (like the meyer’s) or online tutorials (like lynda.com).

i’ve never seen adobe offer previous versions of their software (the current is cs5.5), so i assume that it is a third party… if you feel it is a reputable 3rd-party, and your not getting a bogus pirated version then it’s a great deal.

if it’s a used version, just inquire about whether the previously installed version had been ‘deactivated’ and removed from the original computer. it’s very easy for the previous user to deactivate the software prior to uninstalling (from after effects choose help>deactivate), but if it has been uninstalled prior to deactivation, there will need to be a call to adobe before you can activate it when you install it.

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Stephen Underwood]

Thanks for the input… “Techsoup.org” is a huge software donater /discounter organization for non-profits that I bought my CS5 Suite from last year. ($160). I guess I’ll grab one if there are some left. I’m a big fan of Lynda.com so I’ll check out the tutorials for After Effects.