It's expensive for two reasons.

- Piracy.
- Greed.

They would charge a higher price than it is truly worth because they know their clients will fork over the cash in order to use the best tools on the market. This is their own greed. To make matters worse, they know piracy exists on their products and therefore as a reactionary response they make the price low enough that their clients will stay pay but high enough that they aren't putting themselves into the hole with piracy / lower than assumed sales.

Gimp is nice, but Photoshop is easily better. And if you're really serious about something, wouldn't you want to use the best tools on the market?

If you think piracy is why it costs so much youre crazy.  Hell piracy is probably why it doesn't cost MORE becaues otherwise companies would pirate it.

If you have a piracy problem the correct response is to CUT prices not raise them.

Wait, what?

My student version of Photoshop CS2 and everyone I know who has other student versions has all features...

-edit-

And, no, Gimp isn't professional.  If I worked ay any business that needed Photoshop and they used Gimp, I'd start looking for a job elsewhere because it means that business doesn't have money.  I like being paid for my work.

because don't pay for them, thats why.

Adobe products are designed and priced for the professional market. Not the home user.

Photoshop/Dreamweaver are priced for people who will use them every day, not somebody who wants to design a simple website, or edit a image every once in a while.

There are other software packages in the $50 or less price range that should be able to do what you want. They might not be as powerful as the Adobe products, but should work for you and are a lot more affordable.

damnd you Twestern you beat me to it.

I don't like GIMP. I do like Paint.net. Theres also Inkscape and various other tools that can be used. Photoshop is top notch because it's large packages of features. If you don't mind hunting down all sorts of crazy mini tools you can pretty much get everything you need free. It's highly inconvenient to use, but hey. You get what you pay for.

Adobe = Convenience + Bloat

Yes, yes they are. They are fully worth the price tag that they sell them for.

PaINT.NET.... (vomit)

seriously I cant stand that program.

Because they are the best.

Actually no, because if that was the case there wouldnt be a suite of development tools made by some company, forgot what it was but I want them, that cost well over $200k.

Its not greed or piracy, its quality.