G'day again Robert
We ended up with CS5 Design Premium for around $350 because the CEOoDO has to do a photography unit in her Diploma in Ceramics. It came with a serial number, so is also installable on the laptop.
If I were to take advantage of the student discount, I would probably want to by a suite as well. I usually have a bunch of spare time in the winter so I plan on taking some Adobe software courses as well as some in photography. The $149 that Lightroom 3 is going for right now is reasonable enough, and combined with the fact that it is upgradable (as Bill and Ted mentioned) makes it worth buying.
Personally, I don't like the way LR works, even though I know it well enough to demonstrate its basics. I haven't used LR3, only LR1 and LR2.
I prefer Bridge + PS, and make very considerable use of Acrobat for a wide variety of things. Illustrator/InDesign are not particularly useful to me; and I use Unix based open source s/w on my web site so Dreamweaver etc are in that same category. However, full tote odds for just PS5 + Acrobat Pro here is around 4x what I paid for the full suite, which retails here for around Oz $2,400 or so!!
I also got a free copy of PSE7 with something, I forget what, and that is also on the laptop.
Fortunately, my computer and my laptop shot craps on me. I had to build another desktop and buy another laptop so I've had a good 90 days trial time with Lightroom 3.
I hope you had backups ...
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That's why I don't like laptops. My old IBM R50 is about 6 y.o. I was given it by a client in lieu of payment for specifying, building and configuring a decent desktop system for him. I have upgraded it to 2 GB RAM and a 320 GB HDD that has an 8 MB cache. These two things doubled the speed it takes to load PS5 along with a PSD-16 file (went from a bit over a minute to just under 30 seconds!). It is now "fast enough".
Now it needs a new battery, which is only about $70~80, so not too bad. It is built like a brick outhouse, and will now be OK for me to use as a travelling companion along with an external portable HDD for backing up images uploaded to the IBM's internal HDD. When I got my new monitor for my main w/s, it came with a free Spyder 3 calibrator. I have used that on the IBM's display, which improved it very significantly (not so much that I would try colour editing on it, however ... ). It is now acceptable for proofing images at least.
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Regards, john from Melbourne, Australia.
(see profile for current gear)
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The Camera doth not make the Man (or Woman) ...
Perhaps being kind to cats, dogs & children does ...
I am a
Photography Aficionado ...
Gallery:
http://canopuscomputing.com.au/gallery2/v/main-page/
Bird Control Officers on active service.
Member of UK (and abroad) Photo Safari Group
. I could well be dead before I need a further upgrade, lol! Actually, upgrade of my PP s/w - I could do with an "upgrade" anytime ... 
