# Adobe goes subscription-only



## heavyall

Adobe goes subscription-only, rebrands Creative Suite as Creative Cloud




> In abandoning the Creative Suite label for Creative Cloud, Adobe signaled its intent to move fully into the mobile and Internet era, abandoning individual standalone editions of its products and moving toward a subscription-only model. That model will see users subscribing to the $50/month Creative Cloud system and receiving updates through that subscription.


I wonder what the logistics of being on cloud subscription will be if you need to work on a computer that doesn't have internet access? On the surface at least, this sounds horrible.

The crappiest part of this is Adobe doesn't really care who it upsets. They know that most of their professional clients will have no other option, and will have to go along no matter how much they hate it.


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## John Clay

What the hell is wrong with Adobe?

Subscriptions like that wreak havoc for IT departments and corporate clients - presumably their bread and butter.

Time to upgrade clients before the cut off in June.


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## i-rui

Wow.

Terrible news. I won't support them any further based on principle.


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## wonderings

Not happy about this at all. We buy outright, no need for another regularly monthly bill. The problem with Adobe is there is no viable alternatives. Switching to Quark from Indesign is like going backwards in time, no real substitute for illustrator. Photoshop I could maybe get by with something like gimp, its not something we use a lot of. 

Seems like there is no way around this if Adobe does indeed completely get rid of the buy out right option. If I dont upgrade immediately and decide to hold onto CS6 till maybe CS8 or 9 is released, will I lose any upgrade pricing? I think so, so they are forcing users to upgrade immediately and get onto their subscription model. I hate when they take away choice, and its something you need to have.


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## FeXL

So, from a $200 upgrade about every 18 months to $600/yr.

I will call Adobe up & voice a very strong opinion. If they deal with enough pissed off customers, just maybe...


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## Macfury

This is utterly disgusting. The cost is bad enough, but requiring me to be on the Internet 24/7 to work is just as bad.

I was just about to contact them to complain and saw this on their website:



> The Adobe Creative Cloud Connection Application will be unable to connect to the Adobe Creative Cloud due to planned maintenance. For more information, please see Creative Cloud Connection Planned Maintenance.


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## CubaMark

WTH - did Microsoft buy Adobe while we weren't looking or something? 

I'm coming up on one year being Adobe-free..... and zero impact so far on any project I've had to do, thanks to Pixelmator and a bunch of free / low-cost PDF tools... adios, Adobe!


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## Macfury

FeXL said:


> So, from a $200 upgrade about every 18 months to $600/yr.
> 
> I will call Adobe up & voice a very strong opinion. If they deal with enough pissed off customers, just maybe...


FeXL, when you reach someone who matters, post the contact info here please.


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## Paddy

Macfury said:


> FeXL, when you reach someone who matters, post the contact info here please.


Yes, please. 

I can't believe they've taken away our choice - nor that in order to do anything one now HAS to be connected to the internet. They've completely lost touch with their users. I'm hoping there will be a loud and resounding backlash.

I'll continue to use Lightroom, and may upgrade from CS5 to CS6 while I still can, but darned if I'm forking over $50 a month in perpetuity to these highway robbers. I need ID, Acrobat (though there are substitutes for that) and PS, and still use Dreamweaver for a few clients who I haven't (yet) moved to Wordpress.


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## Dennis Nedry

[deleted]


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## CubaMark

Dennis Nedry said:


> ...and things like Pixelmator (despite billing themselves as "photoshop killers") never seem to want to implement the useful things like Layer Styles....


Well, to be fair, the Pixelmator team did say that they had to set aside progress on new features like Layer Styles to deal with bugs - like the OS X 10.8.2 graphics card bug that caused spontaneous resets (fixed in 10.8.3). It's also a small team, compared to Adobe's legion of programmers. And at $15? Well, I can put up with a little extra work to attain the look I want - Pixelmator does still have layers and filters, so most of what you want can be achieved...


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## crawford

I can understand some frustration with having to shell out $50/month rather than $2,000 or so followed by periodically dropping a few hundred bucks on upgrades, but there is no requirement that you have to be continually online in order to use the product. 

From some "Mac Masters":



Paddy said:


> I can't believe they've taken away our choice - nor that in order to do anything one now HAS to be connected to the internet.





Denis Nedry said:


> All we're asking from you is a persistent internet connection and a few bucks a month!





Macfury said:


> but requiring me to be on the Internet 24/7 to work is just as bad.





heavyall said:


> I wonder what the logistics of being on cloud subscription will be if you need to work on a computer that doesn't have internet access?



From Adobe:


Adobe's own FAQ said:


> *Do I need ongoing Internet access to use my Creative Cloud desktop applications?
> *
> 
> No. Your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Photoshop and Illustrator) are installed directly on your computer, so you won't need an ongoing Internet connection to use them on a daily basis.
> 
> You will need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you'll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days. However, you'll be able to use products for 180 days even if you're offline.


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## Dennis Nedry

[deleted]


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## eMacMan

Pixelmator has been hung up trying to implement a working layer styles for a long time. Perhaps this will light their fire.

I am still using PS Elements 4 which works just fine. Sadly Bridge requires being logged into the same user profile from which Elements was installed. Possibly had I installed even a month sooner it might work as well.

While I had intended to upgrade to a 64 bit version of Elements, this seems to be a deal breaker. 

I do the majority of my PS type work off line so obviously even though my needs are quite light Adobe is going the way of MacroSloth on this computer.

Kept looking to see if Elements was included in all of this or was being discontinued entirely, but no definitive answer.


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## Macfury

crawford said:


> I can understand some frustration with having to shell out $50/month rather than $2,000 or so followed by periodically dropping a few hundred bucks on upgrades, but there is no requirement that you have to be continually online in order to use the product.


Yes, I was just about to post that. However. most of us have already dropped the $2,000. So it's the choice of when you upgrade that's taken away. I have never upgraded to the tune of $600 a year in my life.


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## groovetube

I've been using creative cloud since the start. It was good for me since the same money gave me a pile of apps I never had. It's useful to have inDesign and after effects once in a while.

But, I still think this is total crap. Truthfully, as I've gone in the last couple years I pretty much only use photoshop, fireworks and illustrator anymore, flash I rarely use, dreamweaver I've ditched for coda.

I make plenty so the cost is minor in the scheme of things yearly, but I did buy pixelmator simply to support them and use it in some small cases. It has a long way to go yet.


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## chas_m

Pixelmator is nice, but it has some seriously show-stopping bugs (try resizing a graphic and keeping it sharp, for example). I'm hoping Acorn 4 will eventually replace Pixelmator (which, as I say, I like -- but can't use for some projects).

As for Adobe, CS3 continues to work for me in Mountain Lion, and I suppose I should get the CS6 upgrade while they're still offering upgrade pricing and just hold onto it until CS3 stops working. I knew THAT day would come.

I don't like the rental model even though there are SOME groups of users where that scenario is advantageous. But it seems to me they've completely slit their throat in the prosumer market (I suspect they will keep PS elements and Premiere elements around as consumer apps). Will the money they make off the industry pro market make up for that? I wouldn't have thought so.


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## eMacMan

chas_m said:


> ...
> 
> I don't like the rental model even though there are SOME groups of users where that scenario is advantageous. But it seems to me they've completely slit their throat in the prosumer market* (I suspect they will keep PS elements and Premiere elements around as consumer apps)*. Will the money they make off the industry pro market make up for that? I wouldn't have thought so.


While one can hope, should they say go cloud on these as well even at $10/month, the cost and the online bit will still have me heading for the exits.


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## groovetube

I don't know that the general prosumer public tends to shell out for photoshop or illustrator full pop so my guess is the pro market does a count for most of their money.


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## pm-r

Does this maybe apply here?


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## keebler27

Well time to buy the latest version and stick with it. 

I can't help but wonder if this will be the new wave for licensing and installing software?

If I buy software, I'd like to own it and not have it in the cloud. Maybe it will roll out differently than our initial thoughts, but I'm also in the "this is a dumb move" boat, for now.


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## groovetube

pm-r said:


> Does this maybe apply here?


well, I can have much to criticize about adobe, but I can't say that chart is even close to real world usage professionally.

That might though be close to accurate for office 2011.


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## groovetube

keebler27 said:


> Well time to buy the latest version and stick with it.
> 
> I can't help but wonder if this will be the new wave for licensing and installing software?
> 
> If I buy software, I'd like to own it and not have it in the cloud. Maybe it will roll out differently than our initial thoughts, but I'm also in the "this is a dumb move" boat, for now.


I almost wonder, and this happened a couple times before, if sneaky adobe does this, huge wave of purchases to make a bunch of cash, then after the big uproar back down.

I'm getting tired of adobe. Where is the adobe of 10-15 years ago?


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## John Clay

groovetube said:


> I almost wonder, and this happened a couple times before, if sneaky adobe does this, huge wave of purchases to make a bunch of cash, then after the big uproar back down.
> 
> I'm getting tired of adobe. Where is the adobe of 10-15 years ago?


Retired, and wiping their asses with wads of cash.


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## FeXL

So I went back & read further on the pricing details, etc.

It isn't going to be quite as drastic a price increase as I had originally thought. Our PS upgrades have ranged in price from about $180-$200, depending on whether we could catch a deal someplace. 

With their new model, Adobe will be charging $20/month (just for Photoshop), so $240/yr. Thing is, their release schedule was around 18-24 months and we didn't always upgrade, depending on the feature set of the upgrade. We haven't upgraded to PSCS6, I don't see the value. We also skipped PSCS3 for the same reason. Bearing that in mind, this subscription will roughly double our yearly PS costs. Is that a big deal, financially? No. Others have noted elsewhere that it's a tax write off anyway. In the current market, I need revenues more than I need write-offs. Fail.

Next comes the issue of the software "checking in" once a month. We do most of our editing at home, rather than at the studio. I don't even have an internet connection at the studio. That said, our studio management software on the laptop requires an internet connection to update itself every month and it is amazing how many times a year I'm SOL trying to process a customer transaction and it fails because the software can't contact the server. Royal PITA. How long before the same thing happens with Photoshop? Our desktop doesn't have wi-fi, if we run past the check in date in the middle of an event and PS dies, does that mean that we have to disassemble everything, go find an internet connection to upgrade on, then reassemble everything again? Fail.

In the past, Adobe knew that they had to hustle to get new features up for the next upgrade. If the upgrade sucked, many (like myself) would pass & wait for something worth spending money on. Now that Adobe is getting your guaranteed monthly payment, and in the complete absence of anything close to competition, where is the incentive? Ain't none. Fail.

I'm sure there's more, these three were the first ones that came to mind.


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## Macfury

Don't forget the likelihood that the "introductory" rates will fall prey to confiscatory rates. I believe the way this is being rolled out is all about ensuring that people fail to provide themselves with an alternative.


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## groovetube

well you gotta love the free market!

Hopefully this will spurn photoshop killers.


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## screature

groovetube said:


> well you gotta love the free market!
> 
> Hopefully this will *spurn* photoshop killers.


I think maybe you meant "spurn on".


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## eMacMan

groovetube said:


> well you gotta love the free market!
> 
> Hopefully this will spurn photoshop killers.


Perhaps Spur on? Hopefully with those wicked Mexican rowel spurs, descendents of these puppies.
Google Image Result for http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/h2/h2_14.25.1737.jpg


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## i-rui

too bad this didn't happen 10 years ago when i would have trusted Apple to come out with a viable alternative to the Adobe suite.

Saw this comment on another site and it sums up my position. I use to upgrade every other version of CS. If I was just using PS then a subscription wouldn't be so bad, but i also use illustrator and every so often some of the other programs in the suite.



> The cost isn't even close to before. If you want only Photoshop, you can get it for $240 a year. Before, with Adobe's 18-24 month upgrade cycles, you could get the boxed upgrade for as log as $149 and no more than $199. Now it's vastly more expensive since you can't skip a version.
> 
> But that's not so bad, since it is a professional tool, and the price isn't that outrageous. Except for the fact that if you want two applications, that's $40 a month. So what the heck, get everything for $50 a month right? But now you're talking real money. What used to cost about $500 to upgrade the Creative Suite Design Premium in an 18-24 month cycle is now costing about $900-$1,200 for the same period with subscriptions.
> 
> Adobe has become tone deaf to its customers. It's now listening to Wall Street. Which is what happens when you put, as Steve Jobs has said, salesmen in charge of the company. Adobe doesn't care about users. It cares about the bottom line, and how to improve it, no matter what damage it does to its customers. They'll talk about how well the subscription model is going, and how they thought it would take longer to get people to accept it. And yet, only about a half million people have bought in so far, compared to how many have not? They won't tell you that. Because they know it will kill their argument for this draconian move.
> 
> There is now a big opening left wide for competitors to come up with a better way. Will any of them bother to even try?


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## Paddy

There's now a petition at change.org:

http://www.change.org/petitions/ado...-mandatory-creative-cloud-subscription-model#

While the chance of it changing anyone at Adobe's mind is probably slim, it's always worth a try.


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## Paddy

Another thing which seems like nobody is really discussing/considering - what happens when the CC system requirements increase, as they inevitably will? If you're subscribing, and the updates are pushed at you with no option to _not_ update (how long can you refuse updates with the CC model?), you may well find yourself at some point with software that won't work with your chosen OS or hardware. Then what? It's upgrade or else lose access to your tools (and potentially, some of your files, depending on which formats you have everything saved as). Granted, typically Adobe and other software developers don't require the absolute latest and greatest OS/hardware to run the latest version of their software, but there is always a breaking point. With the CC option, they're taking control - you don't get to decide when to update your software/OS/hardware - they do. Right now, CC requires 10.7 or 10.8. Adobe CS6, on the other hand, will run on 10.6.8 and up. 

It's always been a choice up until now - you didn't HAVE to update unless you _really_ wanted the latest version of Adobe whats-it. Now, your Adobe whats-it, on which you may have already spent hundreds in subscription fees, will just stop working on you if you don't.

I worked at a newspaper, that in 2007 was still using Quark 4 and OS 9! (I kid you not) They'd moved some of their creative types to OS X, but hardware and software upgrades were painfully slow in coming. Part of the problem was a proprietary pagination system which was going to cost a boatload to update - and newspapers are struggling these days, so holding the line on costs was a priority. I don't think they were all that unusual - perhaps a bit of an extreme example, but many larger corporations are not particularly nimble when it comes to rolling out new hardware/OS updates etc.

And that's not the only issue - what if the CC updates have bugs? Or break something else you're using? Like that's never happened before with Adobe... <_< Can you roll it back to a previous version? My guess is no...but that's a question that needs answering.


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## groovetube

my apps don't auto update, I have to let it do the updates.


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## Joker Eh

Adobe has just jumped the shark.


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## wonderings

Paddy said:


> Another thing which seems like nobody is really discussing/considering - what happens when the CC system requirements increase, as they inevitably will? If you're subscribing, and the updates are pushed at you with no option to _not_ update, you may well find yourself at some point with software that won't work with your chosen OS or hardware. Then what? It's upgrade or else lose access to your tools (and potentially, some of your files, depending on which formats you have everything saved as). Granted, typically Adobe and other software developers don't require the absolute latest and greatest OS/hardware to run the latest version of their software, but there is always a breaking point. With the CC option, they're taking complete control - you don't get to decide when to update your software/OS/hardware - they do. Right now, CC requires 10.7 or 10.8. Adobe CS6, on the other hand, will run on 10.6.8 and up.
> 
> It's always been a choice up until now - you didn't HAVE to update unless you _really_ wanted the latest version of Adobe whats-it. Now, your Adobe whats-it, on which you may have already spent hundreds in subscription fees, will just stop working on you if you don't.
> 
> I worked at a newspaper, that in 2007 was still using Quark 4 and OS 9! (I kid you not) They'd moved some of their creative types to OS X, but hardware and software upgrades were painfully slow in coming. Part of the problem was a proprietary pagination system which was going to cost a boatload to update - and newspapers are struggling these days, so holding the line on costs was a priority. I don't think they were all that unusual - perhaps a bit of an extreme example, but many larger corporations are not particularly nimble when it comes to rolling out new hardware/OS updates etc.
> 
> And that's not the only issue - what if the CC updates have bugs? Or break something else you're using? Like that's never happened before with Adobe... <_<


The software will look the same, it just checks online every 30 days for your license to keep working. I doubt the software will just auto update without you allowing it to, I think thats how it currently works with Creative Cloud, though maybe I am wrong. I am wrong, I would be seriously reviewing any options out there to not use Adobe anymore.


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## Paddy

I understand that you can control the update procedure - but for how long? Is Adobe now going to be supporting umpteen versions of CC or make more than one "version" available for those who stick with, say, OS 10.7 after Adobe decides that 10.8 is the minimum required? So there you are - paying $50 a month to maintain a subscription to something that you can no longer upgrade - unless you upgrade your hardware/OS. 

At least if you make the decision to stick with older software and older hardware in the perpetual license model, you get to SAVE money - not continue to spend it for no appreciable benefit. And no - 20GB of cloud storage is not an appreciable benefit - not with large graphic/video files or capped bandwidth.


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## robert

well I won't be with Adobe on this new venture. I mainly use Illustrator and barely scratch the surface with PS. PS upgrades are far less frequent as I don't need the latest/greatest. So replacing PS won't be a problem as there are choices out there.

Illustrator on the other hand is a problem. What other vector drawing programs exist? It is a shame Aldus Freehand never survived the various buy outs. Didn't Corel buy it and then sell it to Adobe?

I feel this rent-a-software solution is Adobes way of getting out of the 2 year upgrade cycle. Maybe innovation has plateaued in Adobe developers eyes and they are buying time. Hardware has certainly not kept up the pace set back in the PM/G3/G4/G5 days.

I'll upgrade PS to CS6 and call it a day with Adobe. Sad but hopefully some new companies will produce software to compete with Adobes bloatware.


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## Paddy

robert said:


> I feel this rent-a-software solution is Adobes way of getting out of the 2 year upgrade cycle. Maybe innovation has plateaued in Adobe developers eyes and they are buying time. Hardware has certainly not kept up the pace set back in the PM/G3/G4/G5 days.


Bingo. Someone at DPreview posted that the German website Heise listed a nice little summary of the advantages to Adobe:



> Adobe gets rid of a lot of problems at once:
> 
> They don't have to persuade their customers to buy a new product/update every 2 years
> the regular automatic updates have to be just good enough not to lose existing subscribers
> the number of existing creative suites combinations has been drastically reduced, saving Adobe a lot of money.
> And in addition they don't have to cope with the used software market and transfer of licences.[
> /QUOTE]
> 
> See 2nd point. "Just good enough" - absolutely. I hadn't bought CS6 because there was nothing in it that I really, really needed over CS5. I've moved so many of my website clients to the Wordpress platform that Dreamweaver's HTML 5 features etc. weren't enough to justify that upgrade and PS had no new features that I absolutely had to have. I have the latest version of Lightroom and find that so useful that I don't use PS as much any more. Now, I'm rethinking the CS6 decision, only in the light of this subscription-only model, in the hopes of extending the longevity of my perpetual license software at least until someone else comes along with a viable alternative to Adobe.


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## groovetube

The one big problem in the pro field, is I -have- to have Ps Il Id, etc because everyone elese does and I get a lot of files in those formats, and have to send files in those formats.

Adobe has a real lock on this right now and they know it, and they're taking advantage.

My suggestion to everyone, buy asps like pixelmater. Promote them. Spend the few bucks on them now, use them when you can. I've totally ditched dreamweaver for coda, I'd be more than happy to say screw adobe but I can't.

I've found their customer service often useless or surely, even frustrating. It never used to be that way. It seems to me this changed when they bought Macromedia, who I never really liked. It's like they took on what I disliked about macromedia.


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## CubaMark

_*FYI, the folks over at Pixelmator seem quite pleased with Adobe's announcement...*_

In the past 24 hours, we’ve gotten tons of emails asking, congratulating, and commenting about Big Brother’s new move. So I thought I should write a short note about it. As Pixelmator developers, we were quite (pleasantly) surprised by this move.
I must say our pricing, ownership, and development philosophy are completely different from Big Brother. We focus only on creating the world’s best image editing app. Nothing else. No distractions. Just this to drive us forward: the compulsive curiosity to see what happens after we have the perfect image editing app ready for you.

At the Pixelmator Team we believe that our way is the right way.

In fact, previous Pixelmator updates are the evidence of what I’m saying now. All of them come with a multitude of amazing new features and improvements that are completely free. But what’s even more important is that your feedback is unbelievably great about every single one of them.

We’ll prove ourselves again later on this week. On Thursday, we will storm the Mac App Store with a free Pixelmator 2.2. Blueberry upgrade for all of our existing customers. Don’t be confused by versioning numbers. This isn’t a minor update—it’s a MAJOR UPGRADE—and it’s great one.

Then, as I mentioned sometime ago, *we are on track to ship layer styles later this year.* We just wanted to complete this awesome Blueberry upgrade.​
(Pixelmator Blog)


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## Macfury

I'm stuck with Photoshop for some time, but will not go "cloud." I will pay the Pixelmator people $15 just to encourage the for when the time comes.


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## FeXL

Adobe seems to have backed down a bit on photographers (basically, just PS users).


Adobe Thinking About a Creative Cloud Bundle Geared Toward Photographers



> Adobe caused quite an outcry from the photography community yesterday after announcing that its future software offerings will only be available through subscription plans to its Creative Cloud service. The main gripe was that the $50/month cost for all the programs in the CC suite–or $20/month for just Photoshop–didn’t make financial sense for independent photographers and smaller photo studios.
> 
> Well, the sound of grumbling has reached decision makers over in the San Jose-based company. In a post published on the Photoshop.com blog yesterday, the company revealed that it’s thinking about introducing special Creative Cloud packages geared specifically at photographers.


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## FeXL

Kelby is toeing Adobe's line. What an apologist...

My Take on Adobe’s Announcements Yesterday at the MAX Conference

He's just abandoned most of his subscriber base.

Good news is, stock market is up & Adobe is down. Hopefully that will catch their attention...


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## FeXL

Paddy said:


> Right now, CC requires 10.7 or 10.8. Adobe CS6, on the other hand, will run on 10.6.8 and up.


That I didn't know. There is currently nothing in either 10.7 or 10.8 that entices me to upgrade from 10.6.8 As a matter of fact, there is much to discourage me from upgrading. One more "Fail" from me.


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## FeXL

Have also been thinking further about the yearly doubling of costs for PS software. In addition to PS, we also use Photo Mechanic, PhotoMatix Pro, Corel Painter and a few other, smaller pcs of software. Too, we use a number of commercial plugins: Portraiture, Nik Color Efex & Silver Efex, couple from Topaz, couple from onOne, odds & sods here & there.

What if everyone decided to go subscription model & used Adobe's pricing as a template? Suddenly, we could be looking at 4 figures a year, just for software payments.


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## eMacMan

FeXL said:


> Have also been thinking further about the yearly doubling of costs for PS software. In addition to PS, we also use Photo Mechanic, PhotoMatix Pro, Corel Painter and a few other, smaller pcs of software. Too, we use a number of commercial plugins: Portraiture, Nik Color Efex & Silver Efex, couple from Topaz, couple from onOne, odds & sods here & there.
> 
> What if everyone decided to go subscription model & used Adobe's pricing as a template? Suddenly, we could be looking at 4 figures a year, just for software payments.


I don't know if it's still true, but several years ago, it was normal when a PS upgrade came along it would break third party plug-ins forcing an upgrade of those as well. 

Even they do not adopt Adobes policy it could get rather pricey if this starts happening at 3 month intervals rather than 12-18 months.


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## FeXL

Still true sometimes. Good news is, those were usually not a major upgrade, just an incremental one & the upgrades were usually free.


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## Glipt

CC working fine for me on 10.6.8.

I think it's just some of the 'cloudy' features that require 10.7+


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## FeXL

Good to know, thx.

Still examining options, very reluctant to go CC, even with reduced rates.


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## groovetube

at one point I was a SL holdout, but went up when the icloud thing was lion/ML only. I didn't think much of lion. And ML was a little touch and go at first. But now at .3, I can say I hit this super hard with CC, vmWare, and probably 10 other things daily, and right now the uptime on my machine is at around 28 days without rebooting.

I think they've worked out the kinks.


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## heavyall

I just realized a really bad thing that this cloudiness could end up doing for my work.

It took a while for Adobe to become "the" software producer for the graphics industry. Anyone who has been in the business for a while remembers the days when you had to have (and know how to use) a whole host of applications like Freehand, Pagemaker, CorelDraw, and (_>>shudder<<)_ Ventura Publisher -- if for no other reason than you have no idea what your clients might send in.

If even a small fraction of the people who are saying "that's it, I'm not using Adobe anymore" really mean it, it's going to mean we'll start seeing files coming in that were done in all manner of software that we've either never seen before, or have been brought back from near death. It's tough enough trying to troubleshoot what clients have done to their flies and why they won't print properly when you know the software inside and out, it's a nightmare when it's an application you almost never use.


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## Dennis Nedry

[deleted]


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## Macfury

Dennis Nedry said:


> So much for the "anti-piracy" argument.
> 
> There's already a server emulator out there. Which means that the pirates can basically download and install any CC application, along with the server emulator, and with a few entries in /etc/hosts (that's %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts for you Windows users)... Boom, every app instantly activated, forever.


Adobe once lost my entire customer history and would not accept my upgrade path. I needed to use a current incarnation of one of the software suite. Rather than waste time while on deadline, I grabbed a pirated copy, which I used until I could find my paper registration documents. Getting a pirated copy was easier and took less time than dealing with Adobe customer service to get the real thing, which I wanted to pay for. 

I eventually made good, but it offered a sad lesson--the bare bones pirate download offered better customer service.


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## Gerk

Time to bring on the competition. This move will lose Adobe quite a lot of users and it's honestly about time that someone steps up and builds a "better" suite of apps (and yes chas_m we all know about pixelmator but editing images is only one small part of things that people need to do with such applications).

The only people that this change will help is ... well ... Adobe. In theory.


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## eMacMan

Gerk said:


> Time to bring on the competition. This move will lose Adobe quite a lot of users and it's honestly about time that someone steps up and builds a "better" suite of apps (and yes chas_m we all know about pixelmator but editing images is only one small part of things that people need to do with such applications).
> 
> The only people that this change will help is ... well ... Adobe. In theory.


Yes unfortunately there is almost zero competition for InDesign. 

There are competitors for Illustrator but I shudder to think what will happen when graphics start making there way to printers or web designers in a variety of formats, many of which can only be opened by the creating app. 

Interesting times ahead for those that make their living in the various inter-related fields currently dominated by Adobe.


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## robert

As for Illustrator, I send all my final files as pdfs. Any changes will be sent back to me for fixing.

I might be a good thing as it will put the pressure on the designers to get it right and not the printers to "fix".


----------



## eMacMan

robert said:


> As for Illustrator, I send all my final files as pdfs. Any changes will be sent back to me for fixing.
> 
> I might be a good thing as it will put the pressure on the designers to get it right and not the printers to "fix".


Would that all clients were that considerate. Even so I have submitted articles in pdf format and been asked to re-submit as rich text file with the graphics in jpg or TIFF, as the person at the other end could not always extract the text cleanly. Not sure why as I use only standard kerning and line settings when making such submissions.


----------



## groovetube

Gerk said:


> Time to bring on the competition. This move will lose Adobe quite a lot of users and it's honestly about time that someone steps up and builds a "better" suite of apps (and yes chas_m we all know about pixelmator but editing images is only one small part of things that people need to do with such applications).
> 
> The only people that this change will help is ... well ... Adobe. In theory.


well coda is awesome 

But, I really wish Apple hadn't jumped the shark in the pro market. They really could lead here.


----------



## Gerk

groovetube said:


> well coda is awesome
> 
> But, I really wish Apple hadn't jumped the shark in the pro market. They really could lead here.


Coda is pretty awesome  

As for Apple ... Apple only cares about one thing these days, and that's their bottom line and pro apps don't have a good enough profit margin after all the hard work they have to do to keep the pros happy and keep their software reasonably bug-free. Consumer apps on the other hand ... you just have to jam a couple of "this does everything" buttons into them and make them pretty and overly simplified and the crowd goes wild.

As someone stated earlier in this thread I agree that we should all be concerned about enforced updates and having to chase hardware and OSes to keep up with them. If they take a similar approach to Apple's app stores we're doomed -- one version (namely the very latest) is all that's available for anything. If you need something earlier, too bad for you. Dish out or shove off.


----------



## groovetube

Gone are the days that that G4-400 with the versions of whatever that just 'worked' are over.


----------



## heavyall

I downloaded the trial for Pixelmator. So far it doesn't look like it's going to be any competition for Photoshop anytime soon. Lots of potential, but it's nowhere near ready for prime time. It automatically converts all files to RGB when you open them, without even warning you. When you save, it converts the file to a proprietary Pixelmator format without warning you that you'll no longer be able to open this file in Photoshop, and that all of your profiles have been stripped out! 

I do like the interface, and I think this can be a good thing _eventually_.

...off to see if Acorn is any better...



eMacMan said:


> There are competitors for Illustrator.


There are? What are they?



eMacMan said:


> Even so I have submitted articles in pdf format and been asked to re-submit as rich text file with the graphics in jpg or TIFF, as the person at the other end could not always extract the text cleanly. Not sure why as I use only standard kerning and line settings when making such submissions.


Extracting test from a PDF is always a pain. It seldom comes out with anything close to the intended formatting.


----------



## groovetube

This sort of reminds me of the days when paintshop pro was becoming a competitor. A lot of people began using it, I recall it being bundled with homesite, I used it in the earlier days of website building. It was kind of a good fireworks kind of thing. But it just never quite got to taking out photoshop or illustrator.

But even if apps like pixelmater don't become equal competitors to apps like Ph or Il, they can, make Adobe change tactics, lower costs, and be forced to compete better as competitors apps improve and grab users.


----------



## eMacMan

heavyall said:


> I downloaded the trial for Pixelmator. So far it doesn't look like it's going to be any competition for Photoshop anytime soon. Lots of potential, but it's nowhere near ready for prime time. It automatically converts all files to RGB when you open them, without even warning you. When you save, it converts the file to a proprietary Pixelmator format without warning you that you'll no longer be able to open this file in Photoshop, and that all of your profiles have been stripped out!
> 
> I do like the interface, and I think this can be a good thing _eventually_.
> 
> ...off to see if Acorn is any better...
> 
> 
> 
> There are? What are they?


Yes having to export a file in order to get a useable format is a real PIA.

I know of no real PS alternatives for those who need to work in CMYK.


----------



## Gerk

groovetube said:


> Gone are the days that that G4-400 with the versions of whatever that just 'worked' are over.


I have a dual G4 500 that still runs perfectly, it's currently running OS9 and a few music apps, but still has some older versions of adobe stuff on it and it not only runs well but feels downright snappy.


----------



## groovetube

me too, well a DA 466 upgraded to 1.2GHz stuffed with ram. OS 9 feels insanely fast. Will never sell it. (mainly because it's useful and I'd likely not get more than 50 bucks or so for it.)

But none of the current crop of machines are really meant to do that anymore.

Times are a changin.


----------



## Gerk

groovetube said:


> me too, well a DA 466 upgraded to 1.2GHz stuffed with ram. OS 9 feels insanely fast. Will never sell it. (mainly because it's useful and I'd likely not get more than 50 bucks or so for it.)
> 
> But none of the current crop of machines are really meant to do that anymore.
> 
> Times are a changin.


Indeed. Now we have large iOSX devices and have to upgrade them every 2-3 years if we want to be able to install any software on them. Adobe has joined the Apple bandwagon.


----------



## heavyall

eMacMan said:


> I know of no real PS alternatives for those who need to work in CMYK.


You mentioned Illustrator alternatives, do you know what they are? I'm researching all the possible apps we might start seeing just to be ready.

What scares me about a lot of these PS alternatives is the number of people claiming that RGB is somehow better anyway, and that you can just let the conversion be done on the fly. I shouldn't complain, because we make a lot of money from publishers who send us their designers' and photographers' files for proper colour management. I don't think photographers understand how often their publishers won't even bother to try to explain to them what's wrong with their files, and just send them to people who do understand what to do.


----------



## Macfury

heavyall said:


> You mentioned Illustrator alternatives, do you know what they are? I'm researching all the possible apps we might start seeing just to be ready.
> 
> What scares me about a lot of these PS alternatives is the number of people claiming that RGB is somehow better anyway, and that you can just let the conversion be done on the fly. I shouldn't complain, because we make a lot of money from publishers who send us their designers' and photographers' files for proper colour management. I don't think photographers understand how often their publishers won't even bother to try to explain to them what's wrong with their files, and just send them to people who do understand what to do.


I used to do careful CMYK conversions for all clients, and now they're demanding RGB. I was told by one client that my CMYK's were already being converted back to RGB for all workfiles and that the entire page layout was being separated to CMYK in one bulk conversion.


----------



## CubaMark

Interesting on the CMYK / RGB issue. I'm certainly no expert on this - just want to point out that the Pixelmator user forums have been talking about CMYK, and from what (little) I have read, Pixelmator has some "limited" CMYK support already... and as MF points out, some are suggesting that CMYK support is not the "must have" feature that many are touting, due to the RGB path many (?) printshops now use. Some reading that may elaborate (or confuse!):

Pixelmator - CMYK Support

Pixelmator - CMYK and color separation...


----------



## eMacMan

heavyall said:


> You mentioned Illustrator alternatives, do you know what they are? I'm researching all the possible apps we might start seeing just to be ready.
> 
> What scares me about a lot of these PS alternatives is the number of people claiming that RGB is somehow better anyway, and that you can just let the conversion be done on the fly. I shouldn't complain, because we make a lot of money from publishers who send us their designers' and photographers' files for proper colour management. I don't think photographers understand how often their publishers won't even bother to try to explain to them what's wrong with their files, and just send them to people who do understand what to do.



There are a couple of them but like Pixelmator nothing that is anywhere close to being a pro app.


----------



## Gerbill

heavyall said:


> You mentioned Illustrator alternatives, do you know what they are? I'm researching all the possible apps we might start seeing just to be ready.
> 
> .


Don't get your hopes up - these are not nearly as powerful as Illustrator. However, maybe a combination will have enough features, combined with a bit of ingenuity. 

Have a look at Intaglio — Macintosh Drawing & Illustration, Sketch | The designer’s toolbox
iDraw - Mac Illustration and Graphic Design
for a start. They are all available on the Mac App Store, and you can generally get a demo version from the developer before you buy.


----------



## heavyall

If Pix' has got ANY CMYK support, it's well hidden. I'd love to know where it is.

There's a lot of misconceptions about RGB workflows. You can't just convert the file and think the colour isn't going to shift. It absolutely does, even with the best colour management software. That's where we make most of our money - everyone thinks their RGB workflow is great until they see the press sheets, then they call us to fix everything. 

Thanks for the links Gerbill, I'll check those out.


----------



## eMacMan

heavyall said:


> If Pix' has got ANY CMYK support, it's well hidden. I'd love to know where it is.
> 
> There's a lot of misconceptions about RGB workflows. You can't just convert the file and think the colour isn't going to shift. It absolutely does, even with the best colour management software. That's where we make most of our money - everyone thinks their RGB workflow is great until they see the press sheets, then they call us to fix everything.
> 
> Thanks for the links Gerbill, I'll check those out.


Beyond converting CMYK images to view in sRGB, there is no CMYK support.

It does have a photo-browser but it is pretty weak. Only letting you look in iPhoto or the Pictures folder. As near as I could tell no way to apply keywords to a batch of photos.


----------



## Paddy

From what I've read (only briefly) you can do batch things in Pixelmator using Automator. I haven't tried it myself, so cannot comment.

BTW - has everyone here who isn't happy with the Adobe CC move signed the petition at change.org? I know it may be utterly futile, but it's still worth a try.

http://www.change.org/petitions/ado...e-mandatory-creative-cloud-subscription-model

It's at 10,400 sigs right now. A mere drop in the bucket compared to Adobe's claimed 500,000 CC users.


----------



## eMacMan

Just a semi-related thought here.

Since we are possibly talking monthly subscription fees, is Adobe going to insist on auto credit card taps? 

Having seen how long those can take to untangle if something goes wrong, I would find the idea of authorizing Adobe to charge a credit card every month more than a little scary.

The other alternative is paying a year in advance. But if Adobe considers its customers so untrustworthy that it insists on the subscription format, should that not also be a clue as to how (un)far customers should be willing to trust Adobe?


----------



## ldphoto

While the subscription model has its downsides, it does lower the cost of entry for people who don't already have a version of CS to upgrade from.

I've taken classes at a local photography school on a part-time basis, so I was able to get Photoshop at a very good price through them. Classes were typically taught with the latest, so I typically upgraded to keep up.

I'm now doing some high-end photo printing for local artists and photo clubs as a part-time business. This isn't allowed on a student license, but quite frankly, the revenue I make from doing part-time at the current volume couldn't justify the price of getting the full Photoshop, so I would probably have gone on for a while doing low-volume commercial work on a student license. With CC, the barrier of entry to getting a proper Photoshop license is much, much lower, and can be supported from the cash-flow generated from the printmaking work, so I subscribed and don't have to worry about licensing anymore.


----------



## screature

ldphoto said:


> While the subscription model has its downsides, it does lower the cost of entry for people who don't already have a version of CS to upgrade from.
> 
> I've taken classes at a local photography school on a part-time basis, so I was able to get Photoshop at a very good price through them. Classes were typically taught with the latest, so I typically upgraded to keep up.
> 
> I'm now doing some high-end photo printing for local artists and photo clubs as a part-time business. This isn't allowed on a student license, but quite frankly, the revenue I make from doing part-time at the current volume couldn't justify the price of getting the full Photoshop, so I would probably have gone on for a while doing low-volume commercial work on a student license. With CC, the barrier of entry to getting a proper Photoshop license is much, much lower, and can be supported from the cash-flow generated from the printmaking work, so I subscribed and don't have to worry about licensing anymore.


Good points ldphoto.

So based on your experience what I would suggest is that they offer both CC and CS7. That way they could satisfy many markets at the same time.

Just a thought on my part.


----------



## eMacMan

screature said:


> Good points ldphoto.
> 
> So based on your experience what I would suggest is that they offer both CC and CS7. That way they could satisfy many markets at the same time.
> 
> Just a thought on my part.


Which makes a great deal of sense and is I suspect exactly what Adobe is trying to avoid.


----------



## ldphoto

There's also some weird accounting rules concerning recognition of revenue for software that makes it much more complicated to deal with free updates. It's illogical and nonsensical, but the current accounting rules make it very difficult for companies to provide free upgrades to software if they've already recognized the revenue for that sale in their balance sheet.


----------



## crawford

ldphoto said:


> There's also some weird accounting rules concerning recognition of revenue for software that makes it much more complicated to deal with free updates. It's illogical and nonsensical, but the current accounting rules make it very difficult for companies to provide free upgrades to software if they've already recognized the revenue for that sale in their balance sheet.


Cite? I'd be surprised if such rules apply to subscription-based software.


----------



## Paddy

ldphoto, so I take it you're ok with having to pay forever, or else risk losing access to any files in Adobe-only formats? That, for me, is a complete no-go. That, and $600 a year whether I like it or not in order to continue using the software, whether I need any new features they've added or not, which will no doubt become more than $600 sooner rather than later....

No thanks.

And you might want to read this blog post from someone who has taken the time to read the CC user agreement and comment on same. Some real eye-openers in there, including the bit about being able to update your software without any input from you. Bugs? Incompatibilities? Inability to roll back to a previous version? Sure...bring it on. While I pay, and pay and pay...

No thanks.

MPG blog - Adobe Creative Cloud: Lopsided Legal Agreement

Bought CS6 Web and Design Premium the other day and that's where I'll stay for as long as it takes Adobe to either radically adjust their pricing/policies (i.e.: after a certain amount of time you should be able to "stick" at a particular version if you wish, and no longer pay fees - a rent to own option) or until some other developers step up to offer software that performs as well or better.


----------



## eMacMan

eMacMan said:


> Just a semi-related thought here.
> 
> Since we are possibly talking monthly subscription fees, is Adobe going to insist on auto credit card taps?
> 
> Having seen how long those can take to untangle if something goes wrong, I would find the idea of authorizing Adobe to charge a credit card every month more than a little scary.
> 
> The other alternative is paying a year in advance. But if Adobe considers its customers so untrustworthy that it insists on the subscription format, should that not also be a clue as to how (un)far customers should be willing to trust Adobe?





Paddy said:


> ldphoto, so I take it you're ok with having to pay forever, or else risk losing access to any files in Adobe-only formats? That, for me, is a complete no-go. That, and $600 a year whether I like it or not in order to continue using the software, whether I need any new features they've added or not, which will no doubt become more than $600 sooner rather than later....
> 
> No thanks.
> 
> And you might want to read this blog post from someone who has taken the time to read the CC user agreement and comment on same. Some real eye-openers in there, including the bit about being able to update your software without any input from you. Bugs? Incompatibilities? Inability to roll back to a previous version? Sure...bring it on. While I pay, and pay and pay...
> 
> No thanks.
> 
> MPG blog - Adobe Creative Cloud: Lopsided Legal Agreement
> 
> Bought CS6 Web and Design Premium the other day and that's where I'll stay for as long as it takes Adobe to either radically adjust their pricing/policies (i.e.: after a certain amount of time you should be able to "stick" at a particular version if you wish, and no longer pay fees - a rent to own option) or until some other developers step up to offer software that performs as well or better.


Yowsers raises my what-if to a more than likely scenario. 

Do take the time to read the article.


----------



## wonderings

Paddy said:


> ldphoto, so I take it you're ok with having to pay forever, or else risk losing access to any files in Adobe-only formats? That, for me, is a complete no-go. That, and $600 a year whether I like it or not in order to continue using the software, whether I need any new features they've added or not, which will no doubt become more than $600 sooner rather than later....
> 
> No thanks.
> 
> And you might want to read this blog post from someone who has taken the time to read the CC user agreement and comment on same. Some real eye-openers in there, including the bit about being able to update your software without any input from you. Bugs? Incompatibilities? Inability to roll back to a previous version? Sure...bring it on. While I pay, and pay and pay...
> 
> No thanks.
> 
> MPG blog - Adobe Creative Cloud: Lopsided Legal Agreement
> 
> Bought CS6 Web and Design Premium the other day and that's where I'll stay for as long as it takes Adobe to either radically adjust their pricing/policies (i.e.: after a certain amount of time you should be able to "stick" at a particular version if you wish, and no longer pay fees - a rent to own option) or until some other developers step up to offer software that performs as well or better.


I am completely against the idea of renting my software from adobe, and held hostage by this as we are a commercial print shop and many many of our clients stay up to date, which means I update at least my machine day 1 of a new release and fight through all the bugs. I was reading on a print forum from someone from adobe stating:
"During your subscription, you will have access to the current product (of course) and an "archival copy". To start, that's the CC version and the CS6 version. At some point, we will replace CS6 with some other "stable release" that you will be able to keep around and use should you choose to stop your subscription."

taken from this forum:
Creative Cloud thoughts - Page 3


----------



## robert

so technically, you can once CS8 appears, you can subscribe for 1 month and then quit. 
You would then have CS7 to keep for good? Sounds like a loop hole in their grand scheme.
Interesting.


----------



## wonderings

robert said:


> so technically, you can once CS8 appears, you can subscribe for 1 month and then quit.
> You would then have CS7 to keep for good? Sounds like a loop hole in their grand scheme.
> Interesting.


Not sure how it all will work, though I am sure they will have some way of making sure they end up ahead and not the customer.


----------



## Paddy

wonderings said:


> I am completely against the idea of renting my software from adobe, and held hostage by this as we are a commercial print shop and many many of our clients stay up to date, which means I update at least my machine day 1 of a new release and fight through all the bugs. I was reading on a print forum from someone from adobe stating:
> "During your subscription, you will have access to the current product (of course) and an "archival copy". To start, that's the CC version and the CS6 version. At some point, we will replace CS6 with some other "stable release" that you will be able to keep around and use should you choose to stop your subscription."
> 
> taken from this forum:
> Creative Cloud thoughts - Page 3


Good grief.

That's very different from anything any other Adobe employee/exec has said. Considering that this is a MAJOR concern, if not the most major concern from most people objecting to the CC model, you'd think it would behoove them to actually give an *official* explanation of how it will all work!! It's not as if a _few_ people here and there have mentioned it in passing - almost every article and blog posting objecting to the CC model has featured this as a major complaint; stop your subscription and you've got zip, zero, nada and no access to Adobe-only file formats, other than through CS6, which might or might not work. 

It certainly doesn't give me a warm fuzzy about Adobe's honesty in all this. Is this all just part of their strategy? Get everyone upset, then come in and say "oh, gosh - you thought THAT? Oh, no, we'd never do that...and get everyone all calmed down and lure even more people in, because, gee, it's not so bad after all.

Come into my lair, said the spider to the fly...

Or am I just too cynical?

BTW - this business of being able to save to an "archival version", if it's relying on say, IDML in InDesign, is hardly a guarantee of being able to open your files intact. See: What’s with back-save to earlier versions of InDesign? | in-tools.com and in particular this: 



> IDML files saved by CS5.5 can be opened by CS4 with only the “standard” issues that are to be expected when saving back to a previous version with less features than the one which created the file. *You can expect there to be text reflow, and new features used will be badly mangled*, but the content of the file and basic features should all be preserved.


 (emphasis mine)

Just so you're all aware, the current "archival version" for CS6 is CS4. Not ONE version back, but THREE, since CS5.5 was a distinct release. It doesn't bode well for the functionality of "archival" versions of things like InDesign documents, which will not open in one version back. With Photoshop etc. the issues may be a little more subtle - depending on what of the new features you used that aren't available in the "archive" version. 

Either way - this assurance from Leonard from Adobe appears (to me) to be a snare and a delusion._ Unless the "archival" version of the software is the the same one you used to create the file in the first place_, you could very well be looking at a bunch of files that have become something else entirely, particularly if new features in the latest version of the software have been used.

So...sure you can save your files and be able to reopen them later in our handy-dandy "archival" version of the software that we so generously allow you to have after we've milked you for your hard-earned cash for a year or two...but...(and there's always a "but") they might not be quite the same. In fact, they might be royally screwed up. But hey, all you have to do is come back and start paying us again!

Um...no.


----------



## eMacMan

Paddy said:


> Good grief.
> 
> That's very different from anything any other Adobe employee/exec has said. Considering that this is a MAJOR concern, if not the most major concern from most people objecting to the CC model, you'd think it would behoove them to actually give an *official* explanation of how it will all work!! It's not as if a _few_ people here and there have mentioned it in passing - almost every article and blog posting objecting to the CC model has featured this as a major complaint; stop your subscription and you've got zip, zero, nada and no access to Adobe-only file formats, other than through CS6, which might or might not work.
> 
> It certainly doesn't give me a warm fuzzy about Adobe's honesty in all this. Is this all just part of their strategy? Get everyone upset, then come in and say "oh, gosh - you thought THAT? Oh, no, we'd never do that...and get everyone all calmed down and lure even more people in, because, gee, it's not so bad after all.
> 
> Come into my lair, said the spider to the fly...
> 
> Or am I just too cynical?


Perhaps not cynical enough???

Something that is obvious here is that it is the bean counters who are calling the shots. In the case of a company like Adobe the long term losses could easily outweigh the short term gains. Especially if product development also places bean counters first and users second.


----------



## Paddy

eMacMan said:


> Perhaps not cynical enough???


Yup...I did some more reading and added a bunch more to my post about the "archival" version option that Leonard from Adobe is assuring us will be the answer to our fears.

And yeah - it's absolutely clear that bean counters are calling the shots. Adobe hasn't been shy about admitting that at all.


----------



## ldphoto

I guess for me it's not a huge deal. I use Photoshop only. I don't even now how to use Illustrator and InDesign, and I have no need for them. I don't so web sites or video. I save everything for archival in TIFF format, which can be opened by multiple applications.

I'm more concerned about not being able to move forward with files because software packages are becoming abandoned (cough...Aperture...cough). I have 700GB of photos in Aperture, many of which with edits, and I have no indication that I will ever be able to get a good noise reduction, sharpening or perspective tool. And migrating to anything else is quite difficult.

I usually try to always have the latest version of Photoshop regardless, because I deal with a number of amateur photographers as clients, and when they have questions, they often come to me. If I don't have the latest and greatest, sometimes I can't field those questions (grated, I've worked around that previously be installing a trial of the latest version for a few days to play with).

I don't have a basic problem with the subscription model. Subscriptinos like Microsoft TechNet and MSDN offer tremendous value for the price. Adobe CC is priced a bit steeply, and I think that's the real reason why lots of people are complaining.





Paddy said:


> ldphoto, so I take it you're ok with having to pay forever, or else risk losing access to any files in Adobe-only formats? That, for me, is a complete no-go. That, and $600 a year whether I like it or not in order to continue using the software, whether I need any new features they've added or not, which will no doubt become more than $600 sooner rather than later....
> 
> No thanks.
> 
> And you might want to read this blog post from someone who has taken the time to read the CC user agreement and comment on same. Some real eye-openers in there, including the bit about being able to update your software without any input from you. Bugs? Incompatibilities? Inability to roll back to a previous version? Sure...bring it on. While I pay, and pay and pay...
> 
> No thanks.
> 
> MPG blog - Adobe Creative Cloud: Lopsided Legal Agreement
> 
> Bought CS6 Web and Design Premium the other day and that's where I'll stay for as long as it takes Adobe to either radically adjust their pricing/policies (i.e.: after a certain amount of time you should be able to "stick" at a particular version if you wish, and no longer pay fees - a rent to own option) or until some other developers step up to offer software that performs as well or better.


----------



## Paddy

ldphoto said:


> I guess for me it's not a huge deal. I use Photoshop only. I don't even now how to use Illustrator and InDesign, and I have no need for them. I don't so web sites or video. I save everything for archival in TIFF format, which can be opened by multiple applications.
> 
> I'm more concerned about not being able to move forward with files because software packages are becoming abandoned (cough...Aperture...cough). I have 700GB of photos in Aperture, many of which with edits, and I have no indication that I will ever be able to get a good noise reduction, sharpening or perspective tool. And migrating to anything else is quite difficult.
> 
> I usually try to always have the latest version of Photoshop regardless, because I deal with a number of amateur photographers as clients, and when they have questions, they often come to me. If I don't have the latest and greatest, sometimes I can't field those questions (grated, I've worked around that previously be installing a trial of the latest version for a few days to play with).
> 
> I don't have a basic problem with the subscription model. Subscriptinos like Microsoft TechNet and MSDN offer tremendous value for the price. Adobe CC is priced a bit steeply, and I think that's the real reason why lots of people are complaining.


Are you saying Aperture doesn't have a good noise reduction, sharpening or perspective tool? Just a little confused by the way you stated this.

Lightroom has all of that - LR5 (beta out now and final will be released end of June or so) has a perspective tool. Noise reduction and sharpening in LR4 are very good. Might want to consider migrating? You will lose the edits, though not the metadata/tagging. Moving from Aperture to Lightroom – Lightroom Solutions – John Beardsworth

I love Lightroom - I'd _really_ be up in arms if they made it subscription only as well.


----------



## ldphoto

Paddy said:


> Are you saying Aperture doesn't have a good noise reduction, sharpening or perspective tool?


That's exactly what I'm saying. I always went to Photoshop to do those edits. LR5 beta does those all very well, plus Smart Previews improves my workflow dramatically. I will miss the organizational features of Aperture and its integration with iTunes, but I'm getting better results with LR5 at this time.

Who knows, perhaps Apple with pull a rabbit out of a hat at WWDC, and Aperture will catch up LR5, but they have taught me to not hold my breath


----------



## Macfury

As an Adobe customer, I received a survey from them today, largely about the cloud service. From the way the questions were arranged it's pretty clear that they believe any opposition to the idea is largely the result of misunderstanding the offer. I think they're incredulous that something they thought out so carefully has met with such antagonism. I told them in no uncertain terms that their cloud announcement has led me to actively look to migrate away from their products after being a customer for 23 years.


----------



## screature

Macfury said:


> As an Adobe customer, I received a survey from them today, largely about the cloud service. From the way the questions were arranged it's pretty clear that they believe any opposition to the idea is largely the result of misunderstanding the offer. I think they're incredulous that something they thought out so carefully has met with such antagonism. I told them in no uncertain terms that their cloud announcement has led me to actively look to migrate away from their products after being a customer for 23 years.


Good on ya MF.


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## Macfury

Has anyone gotten onto Creative Cloud yet? I'm still curious as to what sort of usable software one would get if one signed up for the service on one App such as PhotoShop for the minimum one-year term? I would sign up for a single year if I received the latest version of PhotoShop--provided that software would continue to work after my subscription expired.


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## wonderings

Macfury said:


> Has anyone gotten onto Creative Cloud yet? I'm still curious as to what sort of usable software one would get if one signed up for the service on one App such as PhotoShop for the minimum one-year term? I would sign up for a single year if I received the latest version of PhotoShop--provided that software would continue to work after my subscription expired.


From what I read on a print forum, if you discontinue, you get to keep the latest version that was out. So right now it is like CS7, next year if I cancel the subscription, I will get to keep the version I am using right now. 

We use indesign, illustrator and photoshop primarily. With CC we get a ton of apps I will just never use. Would be nice if there was a cheaper option to get only the apps one needed, or wanted.


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## Macfury

wonderings said:


> From what I read on a print forum, if you discontinue, you get to keep the latest version that was out. So right now it is like CS7, next year if I cancel the subscription, I will get to keep the version I am using right now.
> 
> We use indesign, illustrator and photoshop primarily. With CC we get a ton of apps I will just never use. Would be nice if there was a cheaper option to get only the apps one needed, or wanted.


The offer i just received was that as a user of anything CS3 and above, I could get creative cloud for a year for one app at $99. I was considering applying that to my CS3 InDesign to elevate it to something that would be eligible for future offers. However, the constant reminder that "an Internet connection is required" do not inspire confidence. I would want to know from someone that they had received an app that works with no connection to the Internet and will continue to work beyond 12 months.


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## i-rui

I was under the impression that CC needed to connect to the adobe server every month to work. I'd be very surprised if a CC program would work after the subscription had run out. Adobe is still selling CS6 after all....

perhaps it would be worth calling adobe or chatting with their online sales team (probably better to get it in writing)


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## Macfury

i-rui said:


> I was under the impression that CC needed to connect to the adobe server every month to work. I'd be very surprised if a CC program would work after the subscription had run out. Adobe is still selling CS6 after all....
> 
> perhaps it would be worth calling adobe or chatting with their online sales team (probably better to get it in writing)


But CS6 is the final release outside of the cloud service.


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## i-rui

Macfury said:


> But CS6 is the final release outside of the cloud service.


yes i know. i just don't see why they would let people keep a CC program after their subscription runs out is they're still selling CS6. the current CC program is already newer than the last CS6 program.

couldn't people do a 1 month subscription, and then in a year or two subscribe for 1 month again and get their programs updated for a one time monthly fee?

i just can't see it.

if it's true i just found my upgrade path...


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## Macfury

i-rui said:


> yes i know. i just don't see why they would let people keep a CC program after their subscription runs out is they're still selling CS6. the current CC program is already newer than the last CS6 program.
> 
> couldn't people do a 1 month subscription, and then in a year or two subscribe for 1 month again and get their programs updated for a one time monthly fee?
> 
> i just can't see it.
> 
> if it's true i just found my upgrade path...


I finally got to the heart of their version of Pig Latin about the App becoming your personal property. 

You keep the App which works on your desktop without connection to the Internet. However, monthly members need to connect to the Internet every 30 days or it stops working cold. Annual members need to sign in every 99 days--or it stops working cold.

If you cancel your membership, the App stops working the next time it was supposed to check your license. However, the bricked App is yours to keep forever!!

I guess the next generation of pirate software will be versions of cloud-based Apps that ping another server.


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## MacGuiver

I think Adobe sees the righting on the wall. Its getting harder and harder to bring new features to apps like PS and Illustrator that will motivate users to buy an update. SOLUTION: subscription only service.
I was using CS4 up until recently since there was next to nothing in later versions to justify the expense of the upgrade. I've purchased CS6 and I'm betting it will carry me forward for years to come with no adobe tax. I'm also open to alternatives. I just purchased HYPE 2.0 for half price ($30) from the apple store for WYSIWIG HTML5 creation and I'm open to any other developers that can fill adobe's shoes. Photoshop has some compelling alternatives but Illustrator is pretty much unchallenged at this point.


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## Macfury

MacGuiver said:


> I think Adobe sees the righting on the wall. Its getting harder and harder to bring new features to apps like PS and Illustrator that will motivate users to buy an update. SOLUTION: subscription only service.
> I was using CS4 up until recently since there was next to nothing in later versions to justify the expense of the upgrade. I've purchased CS6 and I'm betting it will carry me forward for years to come with no adobe tax. I'm also open to alternatives. I just purchased HYPE 2.0 for half price ($30) from the apple store for WYSIWIG HTML5 creation and I'm open to any other developers that can fill adobe's shoes. Photoshop has some compelling alternatives but Illustrator is pretty much unchallenged at this point.


I'm at CS5 with PhotoShop and CS3 with everything else. I am just looking for the cheapest way to gradually move to CS6 for both PhotoShop and InDesign, just for the sake of software longevity, not features--while looking for a replacement.


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## CubaMark

MacGuiver said:


> I just purchased HYPE 2.0 for half price ($30) from the apple store for WYSIWIG HTML5 creation...


Hype is frakkin' amazing.


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## groovetube

CubaMark said:


> Hype is frakkin' amazing.


I bought it mainly to support them, (as I did pixelmator) but haven't had much time to really use it beyond testing it much a while ago.

I did get Coda, and haven't opened dreamweaver since. Coda, is a brilliant piece of software.

Adobe recently announced it was stopping new versions of fireworks, which to me was the swiss army tool for web. Perhaps pixelmator will pick up the torch.


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