Photoshop moving to cloud/subscription service only.
- Thread starter Lost Canadian
- Start date
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/18/us-adobe-results-idUSBRE95H19020130618
Adobe has posted higher than expected quarterly profits, the result of switching to the Creative Cloud rental model for Photoshop. They now have 700,000 subscribers to CC. Looks like there's no reason for Adobe to reconsider the subscription model.
Back of the envelope calculation: Assume 700,000 subscribers use Photoshop at $20 a month. That's $42 million in guaranteed income each quarter. If all 700K are full Creative Cloud subscribers at $50 a month, the revenue rises to $105 million per quarter.
But Adobe's quarterly revenues are close to $1 Billion. Where is the rest of the income coming from? Does Adobe sell so many copies of Photoshop Elements?
Adobe has posted higher than expected quarterly profits, the result of switching to the Creative Cloud rental model for Photoshop. They now have 700,000 subscribers to CC. Looks like there's no reason for Adobe to reconsider the subscription model.
Back of the envelope calculation: Assume 700,000 subscribers use Photoshop at $20 a month. That's $42 million in guaranteed income each quarter. If all 700K are full Creative Cloud subscribers at $50 a month, the revenue rises to $105 million per quarter.
But Adobe's quarterly revenues are close to $1 Billion. Where is the rest of the income coming from? Does Adobe sell so many copies of Photoshop Elements?
nwoods
Expedition Leader
Good question Haven, no clue what the answers are. But I find the comparison to the previous year to be more telling:
Net income fell to $76.5 million, or 15 cents per share, in the second quarter, from $223.9 million, or 45 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, earnings were 36 cents per share.
Revenue fell 10 percent to $1.01 billion.
Net income fell to $76.5 million, or 15 cents per share, in the second quarter, from $223.9 million, or 45 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, earnings were 36 cents per share.
Revenue fell 10 percent to $1.01 billion.
nwoods
Expedition Leader
Well, that didn't take long:
"Adobe's subscription-only Photoshop CC has already been pirated within a day of its release."
http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/20/4447916/adobe-photoshop-cc-pirated-in-one-day
"There are also a few caveats to bear in mind: users choosing to pirate the software won't be able to access many of Adobe's cloud features, which, aside from a few minor feature tweaks, are the main selling points of Photoshop CC. Ultimately, the company's goal of getting its paying customers locked into subscriptions isn't really affected by the software leak. Pirates will always find a way."
"Adobe's subscription-only Photoshop CC has already been pirated within a day of its release."
http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/20/4447916/adobe-photoshop-cc-pirated-in-one-day
"There are also a few caveats to bear in mind: users choosing to pirate the software won't be able to access many of Adobe's cloud features, which, aside from a few minor feature tweaks, are the main selling points of Photoshop CC. Ultimately, the company's goal of getting its paying customers locked into subscriptions isn't really affected by the software leak. Pirates will always find a way."
graynomad
Photographer, traveller
I was on the Adobe forum a few days ago asking about using the program off line. If you pay by the month you get 30 days, then poof it's gone until you can verify again with a web connection.
If you pay annually it's 90 days, better but still no good for many people.
As far as I'm concerned there are two options, get a cracked version (I don't give a rat's for all the cloud features so don't care if that works) or move to something else. I can see a move on the horizon, I haven't tried Gimp in years, maybe it's worth looking at again.
If you pay annually it's 90 days, better but still no good for many people.
As far as I'm concerned there are two options, get a cracked version (I don't give a rat's for all the cloud features so don't care if that works) or move to something else. I can see a move on the horizon, I haven't tried Gimp in years, maybe it's worth looking at again.
Looks like Adobe just gave all the pirates of their photoshop software a big ole F-U...unfortunately I fear they're doing it to their loyal paying customers as well.As I read on another forum, and a voiced opinion with which I agree with, "I don't want to rent my software. "It's that simple.
graynomad
Photographer, traveller
Neither do I, it just goes against the grain, I don't rent anything unless it's a one-off for a day like a cement mixer, if it will be useful I buy it. And once you go down that path they have you over a barrel. If you buy version X it's good for a lot of years, at my age it could even see me out. I spend Y dollars and that's the end of it.
Who's to say that the rental price won't go up as soon as they have everyone on the hook.
Unfortunately I have years worth of PSD files, still I can keep my current PS version for them and start again from today with new software, learning a new package will be a pain but truth is I probably only use 5% of PS functionality anyway so there may not be too much to learn.
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nwoods
Expedition Leader
Yesterday I just upgraded to OSX Mavericks, and I read the User Agreement with interest. There was something new there that I don't recall reading before, in the transfers section. I downloaded it from here: http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/ (really nicely organized site!)
Here is the link to the license agreement:
http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/OSX109.pdf
The interesting part that is new (to me):
"3.B. If you obtained your license to the Apple Software from the Mac App Store, it is not
transferable. If you sell your Apple-branded hardware to a third party, you must remove the
Apple Software from the Apple-branded hardware before doing so, and you may restore your
system to the version of the Apple operating system software that originally came with your
Apple hardware (the “Original Apple OS”
and permanently transfer the Original Apple OS together with your Apple hardware, provided that: (i) the transfer must include all of the Original
Apple OS, including all its component parts, printed materials and its license; (ii) you do not
retain any copies of the Original Apple OS, full or partial, including copies stored on a computer
or other storage device; and (iii) the party receiving the Original Apple OS reads and agrees to
accept the terms and conditions of the Original Apple OS license."
I find this very odd. But on the plus side, the usage terms are about a generous as anything I've ever seen....considering that the software is free
"..., you are granted a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license:
(i) to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use, one (1) copy of
the Apple Software directly on each Apple-branded computer running OS X Mountain
Lion, OS X Lion or OS X Snow Leopard (“Mac Computer”
that you own or control;(ii) If you are a commercial enterprise or educational institution, to download, install, use
and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software for use either: (a) by a single individual on
each of the Mac Computer(s) that you own or control, or (b) by multiple individuals on a
single shared Mac Computer that you own or control. For example, a single employee
may use the Apple Software on both the employee's desktop Mac Computer and laptop
Mac Computer, or multiple students may serially use the Apple Software on a single Mac
Computer located at a resource center or library; and
(iii) to install, use and run up to two (2) additional copies or instances of the Apple
Software within virtual operating system environments on each Mac Computer you own
or control that is already running the Apple Software, for purposes of: (a) software
development; (b) testing during software development; (c) using OS X Server; or (d)
personal, non-commercial use."
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graynomad
Photographer, traveller
I think you'll find that technically we don't own most/any of the software we buy, but it's not enforceable so who cares? Has anybody (private that is, not a company) removed the OS when they sold a computer? Heck has anybody sold a computer, by the time I'm done with one it's not worth anything.
The difference here is that PS "phones home" every month and has a hissy fit if it doesn't get the right response. There are examples of professional types going to do a demo somewhere remote from their office on the day that the license was due for checking, and they had no internet connection while standing in front of 20 people with nothing but an error message to demo. I've even seen talk of suing Adobe for lost business (good luck with that)
Anyway I'm sure Adobe will do just fine, they'll lose a lot of small users but the corporate users will stay, well they will have no choice but it may even make sense at that scale.
I've been looking for a good DAM package lately as well, I was thinking of using Lightroom but that's probably off the table now for the above reasons (I think you can still buy LR, but for how long?). Maybe Bibble (now Corel AfterShot) will do the job.
The difference here is that PS "phones home" every month and has a hissy fit if it doesn't get the right response. There are examples of professional types going to do a demo somewhere remote from their office on the day that the license was due for checking, and they had no internet connection while standing in front of 20 people with nothing but an error message to demo. I've even seen talk of suing Adobe for lost business (good luck with that
)Anyway I'm sure Adobe will do just fine, they'll lose a lot of small users but the corporate users will stay, well they will have no choice but it may even make sense at that scale.
I've been looking for a good DAM package lately as well, I was thinking of using Lightroom but that's probably off the table now for the above reasons (I think you can still buy LR, but for how long?). Maybe Bibble (now Corel AfterShot) will do the job.
graynomad
Photographer, traveller
The above discussion has caused me to revisit some of the (non-Adobe) offerings in DAM/editing software. Brief results below but the bottom line is that that are all pretty useless for DAM (Digital Asset Management) and varyingly useless for photo editing.
Photo Ninja - Doesn't seem to do much really, no obvious layers or adjustments of sections of a photo. Seems fast and reliable but just doesn't do much.
LightZone - I love the concept of stacked adjustments but it's so slow it's unusable and seemed to randomly rotate images. Dragging a photo to copy it causes the program to scan the network which took so long I killed it in the task manager. Every time you select a folder it rescans and reloads the thumbnails, it takes forever. It has great control over adjustments but applying them is slow. On another occasion it either crashed or took so long to do something I killed it again.
AfterShot - Same as PhotoNinja really, doesn't have enough control and it crashed anyway. Plus there's a lot of talk about Corel deadending the product, they bought it from the Bibble guys and have done nothing with it since.
Now admittedly I didn't spend long with these programs, maybe I missed stuff but I was not impressed enough to persevere.
I've been using my own DIY DAM program for 15 years,
http://siiman.robgray.com/
and when I think of what that can do I guess I'm pretty hard to impress in this regard. Trouble is it's written in VB6 which is no longer supported by MS and there will come a time when it won't even run on Windows I suspect.
I'm inclined to try LightZone again and maybe post my findings on their forum, it's open source which is good but also bad as I doubt there are the resources to get it to the level it could be.
Oh well, I'll go look at Lightroom again
Photo Ninja - Doesn't seem to do much really, no obvious layers or adjustments of sections of a photo. Seems fast and reliable but just doesn't do much.
LightZone - I love the concept of stacked adjustments but it's so slow it's unusable and seemed to randomly rotate images. Dragging a photo to copy it causes the program to scan the network which took so long I killed it in the task manager. Every time you select a folder it rescans and reloads the thumbnails, it takes forever. It has great control over adjustments but applying them is slow. On another occasion it either crashed or took so long to do something I killed it again.
AfterShot - Same as PhotoNinja really, doesn't have enough control and it crashed anyway. Plus there's a lot of talk about Corel deadending the product, they bought it from the Bibble guys and have done nothing with it since.
Now admittedly I didn't spend long with these programs, maybe I missed stuff but I was not impressed enough to persevere.
I've been using my own DIY DAM program for 15 years,
http://siiman.robgray.com/
and when I think of what that can do I guess I'm pretty hard to impress in this regard. Trouble is it's written in VB6 which is no longer supported by MS and there will come a time when it won't even run on Windows I suspect.
I'm inclined to try LightZone again and maybe post my findings on their forum, it's open source which is good but also bad as I doubt there are the resources to get it to the level it could be.
Oh well, I'll go look at Lightroom again
nwoods
Expedition Leader
Rob, have you had a look at ACDSee? Admittedly, I have not used it in a few years. But I'm on their email list and I see their updates and It appears they have done a good job keeping up on it. They have multiple programs now but the core program was very fast capable and comprehensive at editing and organizing. It's also PC-based, which I believe you are as well?
graynomad
Photographer, traveller
Yes I should have mentioned I already use ACDSee quite a lot (I just updated to V7), I guess that's why it wasn't in the above evaluation because I was looking for something new. I really only use it as a browser though, nothing serious.
It's fast and reliable and the editing is OK but it doesn't allow applying changes to a part of the image so I pass photos through to Photoshop, I've been using it to import photos for a quite a while but one of my problems is the 20,000 photos already in my own program, I really need to get the keywords from that and into whatever new prog I choose. If I move to a new program without my key words I'll never be able to find a photo again, for that reason I still haven't committed to ACDSee.
So far the only package that looks like it can do that is LR (using a plugin) but I'm resisting anything Adobe, trying to get away from them not get in deeper
It's fast and reliable and the editing is OK but it doesn't allow applying changes to a part of the image so I pass photos through to Photoshop, I've been using it to import photos for a quite a while but one of my problems is the 20,000 photos already in my own program, I really need to get the keywords from that and into whatever new prog I choose. If I move to a new program without my key words I'll never be able to find a photo again, for that reason I still haven't committed to ACDSee.
So far the only package that looks like it can do that is LR (using a plugin) but I'm resisting anything Adobe, trying to get away from them not get in deeper
nwoods
Expedition Leader
Oh! Well, try reading page 39 of the ACDSee manual There is an Advanced mode for Import that allows you to use the EXIF data using IPTC Core 1.1 metadata fields. Would that allow you to import from your existing db program?
http://help.acdsystems.com/en/acdsee-pro-7/acdsee_pro_7.pdf
http://help.acdsystems.com/en/acdsee-pro-7/acdsee_pro_7.pdf
graynomad
Photographer, traveller
I can't see anything that would help, it talks about getting data from EXIF/ITPC fields but in most (probably even all) cases I don't have the info in the photo itself, it's in a separate Access database. I can write something to export to just about any format but there's no way I can see to import from a file and apply that data to a photo.
Just as I wrote the above I had an idea, maybe I can change my program to get the data from my database and write it to EXIF and/or ITPC fields in the photo, that will make them standard with embedded info and any real program should grab that appropriately. Hmmm, thinking...
The good thing about writing your own DAM program is you can change the code, the bad thing is you often have to
Just as I wrote the above I had an idea, maybe I can change my program to get the data from my database and write it to EXIF and/or ITPC fields in the photo, that will make them standard with embedded info and any real program should grab that appropriately. Hmmm, thinking...
The good thing about writing your own DAM program is you can change the code, the bad thing is you often have to