Ugh I hate thought police.
Yeah it’s true, most of the issues i’ve had with Krita were related to using it in a non-KDE desktop. But GIMP is pretty unstable on windows too - last time i tried it there, the canvas was so glitchy and slow that it made the program unusable. Since there is no windows installed on my current machine it’s not an issue, but if i had to use a 2D image editor on windows i’d go for the proprietary choices like Sai, Photoshop, or the now ancient PSP10 instead.
Right now I’d recommend installing both, Gimp has stability and better channels-support, Krita has better layer, brushes and bit-depth support.
It really depends on what you’re using it for, but for me Krita has a clear advantage with features like CMYK support, perspective helpers, fast rotateable canvas, advanced colour selectors, 3D-transformable selections…
If you need a truly competitive 2d image editor that runs stable and offers just about all of Photoshop’s features (except for the 3d and video components) Photoline is also a very nice alternative. It also runs without a hitch in Wine on linux.
Now that the subject is brought back up, I still don’t get why Adobe doesn’t put so much as a box requiring you to enter your product serial number to activate the download if it’s meant to only be used by existing customers.
The hard truth is that there are many instances where a honor system simply will not work on the internet and thus is why you would need to at least have basic security and/or enforcement in place. Right now, Adobe just putting the download link there for anyone to access is just as effective as simply posting a link to the torrent version on The Pirate Bay (which is, any would-be pirate is just going to download and use it just because they don’t believe in paying for software).
Since the OP was looking at free only (I guess this because it wasn’t just a question of buying PS) then I suggest to download all the Open Source softs you want, and try them all 
Go get gimp, krita, mypaint, and try them and learn where their strengths and weaknesses are. If we are talking texturing, then also look up all the texture generators you can get, as well as knauld and any other normal map baker. Open Source means you have many possibilities before you commit your money somewhere.
When we talk about 16 or 32 bit per channel, then there is just Krita left at the open source front. And that is, while really cute, still no substitute for Photoshop.
When you get down to it: there is NO open source substitute for advanced 16/32bpc image editing. There are only a couple of commercial alternatives - and, as far as I am aware, nothing for Linux (except imageMagick, but that is command line only).
FWIW, the current development version of GIMP (2.9) supports high bit depths.
And this depends on your use case. I don’t want to go off topic, but generally I think it depends on what your desired output is, and if it is necessary, then you should arm yourself with whatever you can afford so that you get your desired output. I want to be clear, I am not advocating staying away from PS or photoline based on ideology, just wanted ot make the point that there are things to learn with in OSS that you can get started with the theory of things before dropping cash.
That said, I really prefer Krita’s brush and paint over CS5’s, they are so different in feel it isn’t even funny. (IMO only, everyone has one right?)
I did some googling on CS2 being legitimately free and came up with people saying it is and is not. Here’s the posts I found:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1131170
http://forum.deviantart.com/art/digital/1820626/
If its free, jump on it. It may be a bit out of date, but its still a very solid image editing program. Quite honestly very little has changed since Photoshop 6 imo
When you get down to it: there is NO open source substitute for advanced 16/32bpc image editing.
Exact 
And this depends on your use case.
Well, we talk about 3D, and so we talk about textures for example here. So it`s a somehow fixed usercase. Means i need a good layering system with all necessary layer modes. I need a good brush system. Bake normalmap is also a must have for me as a game artist. And all the other special texture cases like manipulating the transparency map, Clone, sharpen, or something to tweak the base textures wit highpass filter for example. Krita is still to weak for me here.
FWIW, the current development version of GIMP (2.9) supports high bit depths.
I know. But it`s a developer branch. Nothing for productivity yet.
32 Bit per channel is planned to be released with Gimp 2.10. Which nobody can tell when it will arrive. Maybe next year, maybe the year after next year. Maybe we have to wait even more years when i look how slow Gimp evolves. We wait since ten years for high bit per channel now. The Gimpshop hack was working, but was the developers not fine enough. So they decided to leave the users alone, without providing any substitute. An excellent example of how open source cares for its users.
Never wait for promised features. Especially when it`s open source. You have to use what is available. I cannot build my textures with promises.
Gimp becomes more and more useless anyways. Version 2.8x introduced freezings in the Windows version that causes waiting times for several seconds up to minutes until the display of the image comes back. That`s a very nice workflow now. Move image, wait 30 seconds, do tweaks, move image, wait 30 seconds, … . Known problem, not fixed since four releases now.
A specialized tool like Substance Designer comes into its own for texturing work. Even Photoline has a very nice virtual layer instance system with support for multiple pages and a mostly non-destructive workflow. Krita’s layer system is also very appealing, though it misses some important image editing features (which is why I use it as a “plugin” for Photoline which has an app-connection now built in).
For texturing work a non-destructive workflow can be quite/very important - Gimp does not help in this at all. Even Photoshop has caveats in this regard due to the legacy code it is built upon (smart object are rather inconvenient and awkward).
yes you are right this is old software latest CS6
I believe you can not now download CS2 from the Adobe site without being able to prove you own a legit license. When this all first came up you were able to download it from Adobe’s site with no login and no proof required of previous ownership. All you had to do was download and agree to the EULA which basically states that you can use photoshop for whatever purpose so long as you had acquired photoshop from Adobe or a reseller. Which you had just done. Once the dust started to settle Adobe said something almost exactly to the effect that, while they could see how people might think they were giving it away it was not intended in that manner and was only meant for current owners. If you read their official statements they basically dance around saying that you can’t use it and they speak sort of generally about what they meant and how they can understand what people think, but they don’t directly address what they did.
Just because they say you can’t use it doesn’t mean you are in any way bound to that. If you agreed to the EULA and acquired it by following a link that did not require proof and you did not in any way represent that you already owned it then it is yours. Could Adobe sue you? In the USA sure! And they could bankrupt you in the process. But they might also lose and I don’t think they want that kind of precedent. Could they get the BSA to enforce this, or the marshalls to arrest you? I think that’d be pretty unlikely. I’d love for a lawyer to read all this and weigh in but I can not see in anyway how you are not legally entitled to use CS2 if you downloaded it in the time-frame it was available without requiring a login or agreeing to anything before download. I am sure people have different opinions on the morality and ethics of the whole situation but from a purely legal standpoint, and IANAL, you could be in the clear. I certainly think those people are.
So defrauding Adobe is ok as long as its easy? I say the word crack or torrent and everyone’s head explodes. Hypocrites. Did I sound like a whiny bitch? Good that’s what I was going for. lol
To quote what you find on the CS2 download page, besides having to agree to the terms before the download:
Adobe has disabled the activation server for CS2 products, including Acrobat 7, because of a technical issue. These products were released more than seven years ago, do not run on many modern operating systems, and are no longer supported.Adobe strongly advises against running unsupported and outdated software. The serial numbers provided as a part of the download may only be used by customers who legitimately purchased CS2 or Acrobat 7 and need to maintain their current use of these products.
It would seem, no-matter how one chooses to interpret it. It is in fact illegal to download it.
Wouldn’t that conflict with the CS2 software license and how would they even know that you are legit?
Sheesh this thread is retarded. If you want a free copy of Photoshop and you don’t care if its technically legal or not, just google for one. Half the owners of adobe software don’t have licenses for it. Some of you ppl just like to argue for the sake of arguing.
This thread is indeed retarded - you don’t need photoshop to be an artist, so worrying about having it is pointless. The issue is the argument that doesn’t belong here - the very nature of Open Source Software is that we don’t need this legal quicksand to get work done, we can use other things that are fully legal to use that are much better suited to our own pipeline.
I highly recommend that if you want to be productive, get a 64 bit version of photoshop on the CC when that launches, and pay the small fee to be legal and current on the software - make art with something that isn’t going to screw your system up at the very least. When I started, everything was high dollar in packages, and it took awhile for me to get my first copy of Photoshop 7 and Illustrator 9. I learned a lot, but it wasn’t long before my tools were out of date for stuff that came in the CS versions, like the perspective tools and mesh warp, etc.
If you believe in OSS and are open to the idea that not every artist should look all the same, then I would recommend to skip the Adobe and Corel products in favor of open alternatives that will get you a unique look as an artist - Krita, Gimp, MyPaint, and even Blender all have their uses in this fashion and can help you get some interesting artwork and unique looks that you won’t find just pressing the flash effect layer style button in Photoshop.
This is important why? Because a user of Adobe or Corel has got their software of choice on one or two machines usually, but OSS can be on many machines, as many as you want. That laptop you carry - on it. That desktop in your study - on it. Your dad’s desktop even though it isn’t set up how you like - on it. Your sister’s computer that she only uses to facebook memes about cats - on it.
What? They don’t all use windows? Ha! Hardly a problem there, my friend - most of the OSS programs do run on multiple platforms, so your mac can still have it, as well as your windows machine, and you can even get a used tower from a friend and put linux on it, and load all your OSS there. Yeah, that is the smell of freedom there, all of the things all of the time.