Home Forums Let’s Talk Photography Let's talk about the cost of being a pro. Reply To: Let's talk about the cost of being a pro.

#5548
Sharra
Participant

@EvilDaystar: Yes, that’s true only if you use Photoshop and nothing else. Even adding Lightroom would still be less cost as many photographers use both. But if you want to use Flash, Dreamweaver, or Fireworks for your web site, InDesign instead of Word, Publisher, etc. for marketing materials, those costs can easily add up on an individual basis. Even getting Creative Suite CS6 Design and Web Premium, which includes Photoshop CS6 Extended is $1900. If you use your kid’s student ID, you can get Master Collection for around $900 like I did a couple years ago. Then there are upgrade costs to consider. If you can’t or are to busy to design the website yourself, you hire a web designer, which will easily cost over $1000 if you want to reflect your professionalism for your online presence, thus $725 + $1000 at a minimum is near $1800.

Granted, Creative Cloud plus outsourcing web design would push the costs much higher. But the initial cost of the website would not be reflected in “upgrades” to it. Plus if CS7 comes out tomorrow, you have instant access to it, with no upgrade costs. As I mentioned, new subscribers may even get the first year for $30/month = $360/year.

I’m not saying Creative Cloud is for everyone, but I use enough Adobe software to justify the cost for me.