Free version of Photoshop CS2?

[Steve]

Can anyone tell me if this free version of Photoshop CS2 will be any good for producing the business card mock ups from Graphic River as described in the video for distant mailings from Jake's recent WSO Print Profiteer OTO. http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html

Just didn't want to buy the latest most expensive version and pay hundreds of pounds if this free version will do?

Many thanks
Steve

[Mr Subtle]

The obvious course of action is to download and install Photoshop CS2 first (since it's free). Next would be to buy the Graphic River template (since it will only cost you a few bucks) and see if CS2 opens it up without losing (too) much. Graphic River designers seem to always be running the latest version of Photoshop and will tell you what versions their file is compatible with (ususally CS4 and above)... BUT I've opened some (free) Graphic River templates in CS2 with no problems (other than font substitution -- which is easily corrected by installing those (public domain) fonts).

[Steve]

Many thanks for your reply. Makes sense and I'll try that. Obviously it's a huge download at 340mb so I just wanted to hear others views first before going down that route.
Appreciate your helpful advice and as you say it's worth a try:)

[Bob Ross]

Unfortunately I don't believe CS2 will work with the mockup templates, I think you have to have CS3 or later. The reason why is you need to be able to use "smart objects" and I wanna say CS2 did not have that feature.

I used CS2 for a long time I should know this but I can't remember offhand.

[Bob Ross]

Looks like you might be Ok, I just looked at a bunch of the templates and they seem to all say CS as the minimum, so you should be totally fine.

http://graphicriver.net/item/line-corporate-business-card/2240236?WT.ac=category_thumb&WT.seg_1=category_thumb&WT.z_author=glenngoh

if you look on the right side you'll see where it notes CS as the minimum. I checked a bunch and they all said the same.

[Mr Subtle]

Unfortunately I don't believe CS2 will work with the mockup templates, I think you have to have CS3 or later. The reason why is you need to be able to use "smart objects" and I wanna say CS2 did not have that feature.
But it does. From wikipedia: One of the most significant inclusions in CS2 was the implementation of Smart Objects, which allows users to scale and transform images and vector illustrations without losing image quality, as well as create linked duplicates of embedded graphics so that a single edit updates across multiple iterations.

I have a Graphic River template that is supposedly CS3 (or higher) and it opened up fine in CS2.

[Steve]

Thanks guys that's really helpful and great news! Actually I just looked at the specs for CS2 and it does say that it supports smart objects under Creation Acceleration:

Smart Objects— Non-destructive editing and transformations, including Illustrator CS2 integration.

http://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html

As you said Jake a number of the business card mock ups do say that just CS is the minimum standard which is great:)

I'll be buying a few mock up templates and trying it out. Hopefully it will be a useful resource for other members too.

Thank you both for your input.