Photoshop moving to cloud/subscription service only.

[Michael Slade]

Yes, that's quite a film. Personally I think the conclusion is flawed, but it's still an interesting film.

 

[Clark White]

Given that this is a travel forum, it seems a good place to ponder how this affects editing while on the road? By my understanding, with no internet, you have no editing ability, right? So if I'm sitting at an estancia in Argentina for a week, or a small town poor internet, I have to simply store all my photo's and edit when I'm in a big city with good internet? Seems kinda crapalicious in that respect, at least for me...and am I understanding that if you cancel your subscription, you loose all the edits you've done to your photo's unless you have exported them as a different file format? I know most people aren't concerned with editing on the road, but at least for me it's a major consideration.

Clark

 

[nwoods]

That's an interesting question Clark. I have no idea what the offline functionality might be, though I have to assume there is SOME?

As for loosing your edits, no I don't think so. Non-destructive edits are just text "sidecar" files that stay associated with the image. If you save your catalog on your own personal drive, the sidecar files would go along with.

 

[Lost Canadian]

Given that this is a travel forum, it seems a good place to ponder how this affects editing while on the road? By my understanding, with no internet, you have no editing ability, right? So if I'm sitting at an estancia in Argentina for a week, or a small town poor internet, I have to simply store all my photo's and edit when I'm in a big city with good internet? Seems kinda crapalicious in that respect, at least for me...and am I understanding that if you cancel your subscription, you loose all the edits you've done to your photo's unless you have exported them as a different file format? I know most people aren't concerned with editing on the road, but at least for me it's a major consideration.

Clark

Clark, you don't actually have to have a connection to use the software and edit your work, you just have to check in every 30 days or so, the software will prompt you to check in with nanny Adobe and perform the updates and ensure you're still paying your tab. While it's called creative cloud the work isn't actually done in the cloud, you'll still download the software to your computer. The 2 big issues with the change are as follows.

There's no assurance of pricing, so if Adobe decides to charge more you'll have to pay more or face loosing your edits. That's a big one for me.
After the first year, for Photoshop alone you'll be paying $240 in annual fees. Some users upgrade every 1.5-2 years with an average upgrade cost of $180-$200 in that time period, but many had skipped cycles and only felt the need to upgrade every 3-4 years. So for the average Joe, even one who upgraded with every cycle, this represents a pretty big, on average, price increase. In 4 years you'll have to pay nearly $1000 just to use Photoshop alone, and the kicker, if you stop paying you'll be left nothing to show for it. All your edits that are not converted/flattened and saved, will be locked up and useless.

Adobe's gone and lost their mind IMO.

 

[Lost Canadian]

As for loosing your edits, no I don't think so. Non-destructive edits are just text "sidecar" files that stay associated with the image. If you save your catalog on your own personal drive, the sidecar files would go along with.

Those sidecar files will be rendered useless unless you're an active subscriber because most of them are propriety and not recognized by other software. So in essence, you'll loose your edits, unless flattened and converted into something like a TIFF.

 

[haven]

Adobe seems intent on separating its customers into an elite group of "creatives," and the rest of us tightwads, riff raff and software pirates.

Anyone here use Pixelmator, the $15 Photo editor for Mac? Their web page says the program supports any RAW file that OS/X can display.

 

[Lost Canadian]

Adobe seems intent on separating its customers into an elite group of "creatives," and the rest of us tightwads, riff raff and software pirates.

I think what Adobe is actually doing is dividing its customer base into establishment/corporate clientele and independents. Clearly it's the later that's getting the shaft, while the prior is actually seeing a benefit, at least with respects to cost. I've seen people say that this is about money, and some others, namely the corporate crowd say that it is not. Well consider the following quote:

"The move to subscriptions just drives a bigger and bigger and bigger recurring revenue stream,"
Mark Garrett Adobe's CFO.​

Clearly this 'is' about money. That said, I don't blame Adobe for wanting to improve its revenue stream and there are a lot of really cool things that the creative cloud has to offer, but it's the subscription only and the subsequent "we'll cut you off at the knees if you don't pay us" model that is the real kick in the cojones to us independents. No one, especially a small scale independent, wants to feel trapped into having to make regular payments. Thom Hogan made a good point though and I'm paraphrasing here, whenever there's a strong pull to centralize something, there will inevitably be a strong pull in reaction to decentralize it. So, as can be predicted, we should see a fairly strong response to this and software like Pixelmator, Gimp or other one time buy or open source options, taking off.

 

[grimbo]

You have the ability to be off the grid for 6 months with no Internet connection. For professionals, especially studio based setups I don't see it as being much of an issue. But for the amateur or hobbyist this could be a game breaker although most of them are usually in pirated software anyway

 

[Lost Canadian]

Adobe has already made a change to their CC pricing, if you opt to pay month by month you'll pay more, $29.99 for photoshop alone. You only get the $19.99 a month pricing if you pay for a full year ($240) all at once. The same goes for all their CC options. If you want the full suite it works out to $49.99 a month ($600 year) but only if you pay the full year in one shot. If you opt to pay on a month by month basis you'll have to pay $74.99 a month ($960 a year).

 

[Honu]

Most folks pay the $200 or so upgrade every few years though not the full blown lic
So its about 3x as expensive still

Well, you can buy individual apps for $19.95. That works out to $720 over three years (average user upgrade cycle), and that's what a full blown licensed version of Photoshop costs. This way, you have a perpetually updated program with all the newest features, and a pretty set price. Factor that and your cloud based storage and hosting site into one monthly cost, and its not too bad.

 

[Honu]

And to think of all those folks who converted to DNG
While open source its a dead end format IMHO
And a way I saw making folks be stuck using adobe !

C1 is nicer output IMHO but the DAM side sucks at least for me
I still use both LR and C1


I only shoot about 20 jobs a year these days but we have a post production company as our main income and use PS and LR a lot I would pay $20 a month but not $50 we only upgrade every 2-3 versions
But if I have to end up paying not sure what I will do ?
Clients want back XMP for raw
Layered PS files for albums and graphic jobs
I have been using ps for retouching so long not sure how far I would be behind ?

So as someone who makes my living using adobe I am kinda stuck or learn new software ?

Will be interesting to seenwhat happens ?

As it stands now, the transition for me away from LR is going to be hard enough but I'd rather do it on my own terms than be subjected to have to pay to see my years of creative work held hostage. As I'm sure is the case with literally thousands of people, I have spent hours upon hours editing my raw work, creating my images in LR and all my adjustments/creations are saved as thousands of photo XMP files, all of which, unless an edited image has been flattened and saved to a format like a TIFF, will be rendered useless if I decide not to pay the monthly Adobe tax. Again, sorry, unacceptable. I refuse to have my workflow and edited images become a slave to a software companies greed.

Edit: Oh, and I have no doubt this is coming for LR too. Tom Hogarty already alluded to in a recent interview.

 

[nwoods]

In a master stroke of timing, Pixelmator released a new version, and hit 500,000 downloads almost immediately. Hmmm...could there be a few people rethinking their Photoshop dependance?
Here is a good little video of some of the major features in the update:

Article/review here: http://9to5mac.com/2013/05/09/graph...update-with-new-shape-tools-effects-and-more/

Pixelmator looks like a great tool for creative types, but I am not sure about how well it would work for Photographers. Anyone on here use it?

 

[Lost Canadian]

In a master stroke of timing, Pixelmator released a new version, and hit 500,000 downloads almost immediately. Hmmm...could there be a few people rethinking their Photoshop dependance?
Here is a good little video of some of the major features in the update:

Article/review here: http://9to5mac.com/2013/05/09/graph...update-with-new-shape-tools-effects-and-more/

Pixelmator looks like a great tool for creative types, but I am not sure about how well it would work for Photographers. Anyone on here use it?

I'm testing it. Only two things holding pixelmator back from being a serious contender to PS, first is only having 8 bit colour support and second is the lack of global non-destructive editing. At $15 neither are deal breakers, I might purchase and use it for some creative wedding work after editing raws in C1. It's a fun program and really easy to use. I'm approaching it like snapspeed for mobile.

 

[haven]

DP Review has published a list of 10 photo editors not named Photoshop.
http://www.dpreview.com/articles/6648389507/10-photo-editing-programs-that-arent-photoshop

The 10 applications are
ACD Systems ACDSee Pro 6 and ACDSee Photo Editor
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4
Adobe Photoshop Elements 11
Apple Aperture 3
Corel PaintShop Pro X5
DxO Optics Pro 8
GIMP 2.8
Paint.net
Phase One Capture One Pro 7
Pixelmator 2.2 'Blueberry'
Pixlr Editor

None of these is a total substitute for the features in Photoshop.

Other applications suggested in the comments include
Darktable
Corel PhotoPaint
Xara Photo
Graphic Designer MX
Acorn
Photoline
Preview (part of MacOS X)
and many more…

 

[maxingout]

Adobe has gone mad.

I have been using Photoshop and different Adobe programs for years, and I will be looking for alternatives.

It makes me sorry that I have been shifting my websites over to Dreamweaver.

It makes we want to go ahead and get a new laptop and install Dreamweaver/Indesign/Photoshop on a new laptop while I still can and before Adobe makes the biggest mistake they have ever made.

When I sailed around the world on my sailboat, I would have not been able to use their creative cloud. And when I drive around the world in a truck, their creative cloud will be a giant pain. I have had internet connections outside the USA that were so slow that carrier pidgeons would be faster to deliver email.

Big mistake Adobe.

I will be looking for other programs.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.