Upgrade from PS Elements to PS CS2?

[ceberae]

Hi! I have a question that's slightly unrelated to PS how-to's: is it possible to upgrade from PS Elements (3.0) to PS CS2?

There reason I'm asking is because there seems to be no shop in my general area that's selling a full version of Photoshop CS2. Futureshop is selling one, but only for Macs. Otherwise, there's a whole bunch of upgrades but no full version.

I googled for it and came up with several instances where websites were advertising "Elements to PS CS2 upgrades for $299" but none of them looked... official? I tried searching Adobe's FAQs on the subject, but came up with nothing related. It also seems impossible to contact them by email. I would like to avoid buying from adobe directly for reasons that a) I’d like to own a CD of the actual product and b) It’ll take a while for the CD to reach me, so buying from an actual store is best.

If anyone has any information to share on the subject, I'd really appreciate it.

[Datameister]

Dunno, sorry. If you're a student or educator, go for an academic release. The program is no different, but the price is hundreds lower.

[Craig D]

Futureshop didn't carry it in my city also
but Staples does (the full version and upgrades from previous versions)

don't know about the upgrade your thinking of.

[Dirk]

I have heard of this elements to CS upgrade about a year ago on the adobe forums, but it was a short running thing.

Basically because PS elements is rather cheap ($90) compared to CS2 ($600) adobe considered that you can just as well buy the full package without upgrade.
The advantage is that you don't need to keep your Elements disk at hand every time you install CS2.
I would be weary of any site or shop that sells photoshop for less than 80% of the adobe retail price. If you manage to get a package cheap, you must know it requires an online activation, and if it's a pack that has been used earlier, you simply can't activate/use the software (Same trick with CS1).

[ceberae]

Thank you! Thank you so much for your help.

A deal that looks too good to be true ends up just that most of the times. I'm so glad I asked here first. Checking Staples didn't even cross my mind, but they do indeed have a full version up for sale. Now to get all that money... :^^:

[mdwsr]

I bought my copy of CS with the Elements upgrade. There used to be a link in Elements' help that would take you to this adobe link, I'll try to dig around for the link.