A lot of those places with student discounts actually require verification that your school applies, so make sure you actually qualify for something like that.

I'm ashamed to say my way of getting PS wasn't the most legal...

Oh well. I'll eventually pay for it...

^ that's the spirit!

As long as you're not gonna make money from your creations, getting it illegally shouldn't be much of a problem.

The bass line for Help! is pretty awesome.

I would go for Bestadobe...if I were a student and could actually count on my school for help.
You should buy it on amazon or get an older version of the software.
Photoshop Cs2 still does it's job for me after all those years

It is. I really like the bass line for I Saw Her Standing There. Props to old Paul.

Anyways, where may I find it legally or illegally? I'm not looking for profit, so I don't think there should be a problem.

I had a cracked copy of CS3 on my computer until my brother got me Web Standard with his student discount. But yeah, if you plan to make a profit from these programs, then I recommend buying it.

If you want to practice in the meantime, then go ahead and pirate it. In my opinion Adobe's product trials fail, since 30 days is not enough to learn how to use their products. Many people who pirate Adobe's products end up buying them later anyways.

CS5 is coming out in a few months, so the older ones might drop in price.

It's risky to try to buy photoshop from any non-official store, especially if it's an older version. A lot of people end up with pirated copies that are so convincing they don't even realize it's fake, they just think the problems are their computers fault.

If you're just looking to play around with graphics there are free alternatives to Photoshop:

http://www.getpaint.net/
http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/free/
http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/mighty/knight/

I've used all of these in varying degrees (including Photoshop) and they're all excellent. Don't feel like pirating Photoshop is your only option.

GIMP is hot. One of the best non-Photoshop graphics software bits I've ever seen. Just a bit complicated if you're new to the subject matter.

@dabridge: Yea, we all say that. I got FL STUDIO 9 XXL free, a ton of free VSTs and VSTIs, I got GM free... at first... uhhh, got Ps free, Ai free, Id free, and about 30 gigs of music... free. but... yea i'll pay them for all that stuff. when i win the lottery. hah.

DSG is correct. The only time I'll be buying some programs is when I work on things professionally, which is really the only time you need to.

Fortunately for me though, my friend got an Adobe package(can't remember what it was, had PS and Fl though) for $400, which isn't too bad I guess.

Kaz, you were the one who helped bring me out of my moralfaginess more than three years ago when you posted on my blog about my fascination with open source software. :P

Also, my brother got me Design Premium from his university, not Web Standard (as I have Photoshop and Illustrator on my desktop PC as well). I'm still using the cracked version on my laptop, as I haven't bothered dealing with why my license will not let me install CS3 on two computers (most likely the previous owner "forgot" to deactivate the license on his computer before selling it back to the uni).

On a more random note, my computer bluescreened as soon as I clicked "Post" the last time I edited this comment.

The only thing to do is buy a copy if you ask me.

Thanks to all the moralfags throwing money into Adobe, I can continue pirating Photoshop.

Yayy!