Adobe Creative Cloud

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

It seems that from now on, you can not buy boxed Adobe products anymore, nor upgrade to them.
Instead, you need to subscribe to a "Creative Cloud" thing that requires a monthly fee to be paid and
requires you to check in to the Internet every 30 days else your subscription will fail and your software will vanish in vapor.

I say they must be nuts.

Don't they know that there are photographers who work in outer locations where they might not be able to go online every 30 days?
Supremely stupid!

RSalles · Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 6:08 pm Post subject:

Orio,

Agree!

Well, i'm +/- prepared to the possibility to get back to Linux with no regrets.
Life has an end, marriage sometimes too, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can go and I'll not die 'cause of this.
I can already do the same things in Linux as I do with LR in Windows - not as fast, but i can, with Gimp, Darktable, RawTherapee...

600 US$ per year = 1 top dreamed lens per year or camera upgrade.

Renato

philslizzy · Joined: 07 Aug 2012 Posts: 4744 Location: Cheshire, England

This is what Microsoft is doing with office. It is a great anti counterfeit measure.

I see that more programs are going the 'cloud' way and I fear that everything else will be reduced to an 'app' so we are totally at the mercy of the software people.

Keep your discs and run old software or learn new Linux based programs.

Arkku · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 1416 Location: Helsinki, Finland

Well, Photoshop's core features have been so good for so long that they've already had to resort to some unpleasant tactics to force people to pay for upgrades (e.g., Camera Raw only working with the most recent version). I suppose the forced subscription model is just a continuation of this… Great for Adobe, surely, since the money will keep flowing in. Bad for customers, since Adobe no longer has any real need to continually impress the customers with new features; have to keep paying even to use an old version.

But of course there will be cracks.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

Aanything · Expire: 2014-05-30

I'm quite upset with this, since I really do need after effects for work, I have already bought a couple of "production premium suite" versions (and it was not cheap), but at least I could choose to upgrade when I could afford it and stay with the older version when i couldn't.
It's possible that I will spend not much more per year than I did so far, but the fact that I can't decide when to spend makes me quite angry.

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

In my view, the worst part of all is this:
Say you have CS6 now, box version. You subscribe to cloud, 25 Euros per month, and you keep doing that for, say, 6 years.
Which could be equivalent to having bought upgrades to CS7, CS8 and CS9.
If in the 5th year, you stop the subscription, you don't have CS9 in your hands. You are left with CS6!
(which, in the meantime, might not even work anymore with your new Windows version)

Even worse, if you don't have Photoshop yet and start buying it with this cloud version.
You may spend something like 300 or 400 Euros per year, for, say, 5 years, but when you stop subscribing,
you are left with absolutely nothing!
And you have spent (for 5 years) 2000 Euros, in order to be left with nothing.

Aanything · Expire: 2014-05-30

Excalibur · Expire: 2014-04-21

Aanything · Expire: 2014-05-30

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Sorry but I think that no one is getting the real point there - which is: Adobe is shifting Photoshop from being a product into being a service.

This implicitly means that you're not buying a license to a copy anymore - you're paying for a service. A rental service.

The difference?
Very simply put: you money doesn't buy you anything.
It simply borrows it, in the most optimistic view.
It's money for nothing.

Think of the difference that there is between buying a DVD of a film, and renting it.
Once you buy the DVD, you can see it as many times as you like, whenever you like.
When you rent it, you have to see it within the timeframe, and past it, if you want to see it again, you need to pay for it again.

Well, with Photoshop it's worse than that, because Photoshop is not a one-time consumer product, like a show, and it's not a service, like a taxi;
Photoshop is an instrument. It's a product whose reason to be implies repeated instrumental use. You are supposed to use it.
Yet, it is now sold as something that you would consume instead.

The whole thing does not make sense.
Think if you'd go to a hardware store and ask for a drill, and the clerk says "sorry, I can't sell it to you,
but for the same sum that it's worth I can lend it to you for one year time".
Now seriously tell me that you wouldn't send the clerk to hell.

twinquartz · Expire: 2013-10-29

Some interesting insights:
http://diglloyd.com/blog/2013/20130508_3-Adobe-Cloud.html

nurkov · Expire: 2014-03-09

it does make sense but only for them, another way of extracting money.

fermy · Joined: 17 Feb 2012 Posts: 1974

Well, I sure as hell am not going to pay subscription. That's all there is to it, it's a free world, older version still works.

Attila · Expire: 2025-11-18

fermy · Joined: 17 Feb 2012 Posts: 1974

Yep, time to look for a new software. Lightroom is still available without the cloud, but I don't think this will last for long. So I started to look for alternatives and found this :
http://www.darktable.org/2013/02/importing-lightroom-development/

Looks promising, I'll try it tonight.

Nordentro · Expire: 2015-01-29

Well, I've used Adobe software for 10 years, and Photoshop hasn't really changed that much. It's very few of the new functions I really need or use in my work. Adobe Premiere has gotten better and more stable, same with Indesign ++. The big thing is if you use more than one application, the integration between them have gotten better and better Wink

I don't like this subscription idea either Crying or Very sad

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

@Fermy: As long as you have a hardware copy of Lightroom to reinstall at will, you won't need this program - at least not at it's current stage of development.
Perhaps in 5 years from now.

But frankly I don't think Lightroom will be a problem. Differently from Photoshop, Adobe has to face real competition for Lightroom
(Capture One Pro, Aperture). This means they won't move it to cloud, at least not any time soon, because if they do, they would
suffer a bad loss of users.

Problem is Photoshop, because it's industry standard and no other image PP program comes close in terms of user base, industry standard,
third party support, knowledge base, educational support.
In other words, if you want to work in the field, you may or may not use Lightroom, but you have to use Photoshop.

ManualFocus-G · Expire: 2014-11-24

I switched to Lightroom late last year, and to be honest have barely touched Photoshop since. Which is handy, as CS5 doesn't support my 6D Laughing

I'm not into layers or HDR, so Lightroom is fine. But slow.

fermy · Joined: 17 Feb 2012 Posts: 1974

Yeah, I also don't use photoshop that much. I like the idea of non-destructive edits, however with Adobe trying to push the subscription I do not like the possibility of being tied to lightroom catalogue. Also it's evident that compatibility is not Adobe's priority: LR 4 does not run on XP for example, one day their new version won't run on Windows 7, while old version won't support newer cameras and what am I supposed to do, buy new comp? And yeah LR is slow. So I am seriously considering alternatives, this Linux thing looks quite attractive and it's free. I'll give it a try, I have a dual boot anyway.

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

Compatibility will not be a problem if you keep a copy of your files saved as DNG (which you always should).

RSalles · Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 5:35 am Post subject:

Arkku · Joined: 28 Feb 2007 Posts: 1416 Location: Helsinki, Finland

^ I guess he might have meant that DNG files can be opened even in software where the latest camera raw support is not available.

DNG is not the perfect solution for raw compatibility either; some non-Adobe software may not process DNG-converted raws as well as supported camera-specific raws (in many programs DNG may use generic conversion without camera profiles, etc). There is also poor support for DNGs with sensors having other construction than the usual GRGB Bayer pattern.

fermy · Joined: 17 Feb 2012 Posts: 1974

Victor Nguyen · Joined: 02 Aug 2012 Posts: 241

I hate the new cloud system too. But would you subscribe if the system is much cheaper? like maybe $20/month. I just think $50 is just too much.