

Ask HN: Is there a Photoshop rental service? - bkyan

Is there a service where I could remote to a server (either Mac or Windows) with Photoshop installed where I could use it for an hour or two for several dollars or euros per hour?
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benologist
You can rent individual applications from Adobe's Creative Suite directly:

[http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/cssubscription.h...](http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/cssubscription.html)

I don't think you'll find any hourly-based software usage although that would
be really interesting to see ... something like EC2-running-x-application
boxes.

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bkyan
Thanks -- it looks like this is the only viable option for me.

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bradhe
>remote to a server (either Mac or Windows) with Photoshop installed where I
could use it for an hour or two for several dollars or euros per hour?

Nope, against the EULA too.
[http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/Photoshop_On_a_Serv...](http://www.adobe.com/products/eulas/pdfs/Photoshop_On_a_Server_Policy_5-31-2011.pdf)

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bkyan
Oh! Well, that would explain why I can't find a service like this...

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gigantor
Have you tried pixlr (<http://pixlr.com/editor/>)? It is a very scaled down
version of Photoshop, but if your needs are basic it can fill your need and is
free. It even has support for .psd files and can preserve layers.

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bkyan
Thanks for the suggestion! I just tried this with a recent PSD that a client
sent me, but it came back with an error.

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zeynalov
If you only need some hours, why you don't use 1 month trial version?
[http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photosho...](http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=photoshop)

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bkyan
Unfortunately, my clients send me PSDs at random points throughout the year,
so I can't squeeze my usage into a single month. Thanks for the suggestion,
though.

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NonEUCitizen
Not a service, but you can go to Kinko's which has retail locations
everywhere. And they have high-end printers next to the computers.

~~~
mapster
exactly. or use Gimp.

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bkyan
The problem I run into when trying to use a different image editor, like Gimp,
is that sometimes my clients send me PSDs with complicated photoshop layer
masks/filters that come across wrong/weird in anything else.

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batista
Hmm, the question makes me think that rather that wanting to use such a
service, the asker wants to build one, and tries to see if there are any
competitors.

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bkyan
I get clients sending me PSDs, every once in a while, that I can't just export
as-is with Wenovo PSD Viewer. It's kind of a pain to have to chase down a
designer pal just to have him or her turn on/off a layer or two and export to
PNG for me. I do this maybe 8-10 times a year, so it's hard to justify paying
for a Photoshop license just to perform some exports.

~~~
batista
Get Photoshop Elements then. Way cheaper.

And it's ironic that I would get downvoted for proposing this, but you can get
a copy of Photoshop for free of the intertubes.

(I say, ironic, because in other threads I would get downvoted for saying that
"freely sharing" commercial software should remain illegal and it doesn't
matter if it's "only a copy" and "you wouldn't ever buy it anyway". Make up
your minds people...).

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maguay
I would absolutely recommend getting Photoshop Elements. It's got most of the
features of Photoshop you'd ever use, and is much cheaper. You can get it
bundled with Premiere Elements for $74 on Amazon right now, in fact. In fact,
I bet you'll be surprised how powerful Photoshop Elements is; I could follow
many detailed Photoshop tutorials in it with no problem at all.

The only problem you might hit with Photoshop Elements is that you can't
group/ungroup layers in it by default. If you need to do that much, you might
want to get Elements+ (<http://simplephotoshop.com/elementsplus/>) as well,
which is an addon that unlocks some of the hidden features of Photoshop in
Photoshop Elements.

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bkyan
Oh, nice! This could work for me! :) Thanks for the suggestion!

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maguay
No problem at all! You might want to try out a Photoshop Elements trial along
with an Elements+ trial and make sure it fits the bill for what you need, but
I bet it would.

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bkyan
Wilco!

