With the advent of technology, software is becoming harder and harder to rip these days! It takes more than a serial code and a torrent!

Adobe Photoshop is one beast I had to deal with lately. Since I connected the internet on my computer, Photoshop wouldn’t work until I register online. Not with my illegitimate serial was this possible, so I took the time to call Photoshop posing as a paying customer, but they didn’t really buy my story.

I gave up. It was time to give into the man and purchase the damn program. But how could I? My jaw just dropped when I saw that it was $1000! I couldn’t justify this price, especially since I use this software on a casual and seldom basis. Why are these companies making it hard to be honest consumers?

Here were the legal options I was left with:

1. I could go to a co-op media post production editing facility where they charge $7/h to use their computer, but the only one I found based on a google search was in Vancouver http://videoinstudios.com/post.php .

Somehow public funding at Toronto Reference Library wasn’t enough as they charge even more at $10/hour to use Photoshop in their Digital Design Studio! http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/spe_lea_digital_design.jsp#details

Here is an even better alternative I discovered:

2. Download an equivalent software programmed by a collective of do-gooder computer wizards in what is known as an “Open Source” Software.
How it works is that the original software programming is taken and tweaked around to change it, if not make it better, so it can be free of copyright infringements and made available directly online with no hassle.

One of the most popular photoshop open source software is “Gimp”. http://www.gimp.org/ . Of course on the site itself, there is no mention of the word “photoshop” but any graphic designer can feel at home with when using it. My tecky friend recommended gimp to me, and I have been using it since with great success. Anyone using it should pay what they can to these selfless programmers as there is an option to donate made available.

To learn more about this cool concept of Open Source software, you can of course wikipedia it, another genius invention brought together by a collective of selfless professionals.