I have CS5, but it's not Retina compatible...free upgrade?

[ceeveezey]

  The title explains it all. I own the entire CS5 suite, but it's not compatible with MacBook Pro Retina. Will Adobe upgrade me for free due to this inconvenience?

[sudarshan.t]

Ceeveezey,

I can understand your frustration. CS5 was launched in April 2010, at which time, Retina wasn't a 'commercially' available technology. Little can be done by Adobe about this.

AFAIK, an update was released by Adobe for CS6 users in late December 2012 for Retina Display (HiDPI) support.

-ST

[ceeveezey]

I understand it wasn't available at the time, but that still doesn't answer my concern. Would anyone else care to answer my question?

[sudarshan.t · Accepted solution]

The answer is and will be NO, unfortunately not - from anyone else who may respond to this thread as well.

Your available option is to upgrade to CS6. I had CS5 at the time as well. Upgraded to 5.5 and then now on CS6. But again, this depends on if you're using CS for personal/ hobby use or for commercial use. If you're using it for commercial use, you shouldn't mind spending that extra $300-400 from time-to-time to keep yourself up-to-date.

Another option I see fit for you is the Creative Cloud subscription - pay as you go plans starting as low as $19/mo. Access to all Adobe applications and you're always synced to the cloud - meaning you get the latest versions as and when they are released.

[Min Park]

Adobe might be able to spend some extra money on development and update CS5 to support retina but there's no responsibility

Photoshop is built by Adobe and the retina display is only made by Apple

[PECourtejoie]

On the other hand, I have CS6 that's retina ready; but Apple did not send me a retina MBP ;°)

[Paul_Vaucher]

When I purchased my licence for CS5.5, the MacBook pro retina was already available.

I am not a professional user. Most of the people I know use pirated versions of CS. I appreciated Adobe products and therefore decided it was fare to pay for the software they were developing. I spent $800 for an education license (I am a PhD student so this is a lot of money for me). I am now told that if I want to use my product on the MacBook pro retina, I am to spend an extra $1000 for CS6 or use Adobe Creative Cloud (I work on my laptop in places without internet connections... so no use for me!).

What is Adobe doing? They seem to be doing all they can to lose customers and give themselves a bad reputation...

On the other hand, the good side of this story is that it will make all my friends using the pirated version of CS6 feel less guilty and I will definitly not incline them to buy the product anymore.

[Alec Molloy]

Just to clarify, is Photoshop still functioning for you? CS5 doesn't support retina displays, but it should work just fine at regular resolution.

[BITESBITER]

There are plugins like this: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/marketplace/index.cfm?event=marketplace.offering&marketplaceid=2&offeri...

But I have no experience with this particular one.

Ritina was already there when CS5.5 was around but I have never seen a RetinaUpdate! You get used to that!

[Min Park]

Well actually you don't have to update to view in on retina display.

What the retina support does is Photoshop renders retina's full resolution (2880x1800) only within it's frame so it lets users view other application at more comfortable resolution (it's something like 1680 x 1050) while editing the photos at amazing resolution.

This can be (kind of) acheived if you force set the resolution of the retina screen to it's maximum

it's not available via default System Preference but there are few applications enable this feature (e.g. SetResX)

[BITESBITER]

Yes but the problem is also the ppi (pixels per inch) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retina_Display

I mostly use 300 ppi

[Paul_Vaucher]

Adobe's Swiss customer service was quiet straightforward about this problem:

'Use the new Adobe Creative Cloud' or

'Upgrade or buy the CS6 release'

They were even rude enough to hang up on me once I told them their policy would have me stop buying or using their service.

I had more luck in obtaining answers from my Apple resseller. Apparently, about a month ago (June 2013), there was a discussion between Apple and Adobe. Apple was very unpleased by Adobe's policy. They were promoting the MacBook pro retina for optimal graph display and use in handling videos, photos, and graphics and received loads of complaints about CS5 and CS5.5 not been compatible with their device. It was therefore apparently decided to also provide an update for retina display on CS5.5 (I am not sure for CS5 but think it will also be provided).

So we might have to wait a month or two... but their is hope we will be able to use CS on our MacBook pro.