PS6 will be the last version of PS for me Andy. I've been held hostage for licenses/upgrade by software vendors before - never again.
From my perspective, the change is purely to benefit Adobe and everyone seems to be falling for their smoke and mirrors info.
- The software has nothing to do with 'the cloud' and is still downloaded and installed on your PC/Mac (just as it is now)
- That means you still have to download updates and install them (just as happens now)
- Apparently updates to CC have been rather lacking in the last 12 months - sounds similar to the CS updates!
- It will still be pirated (because it's installed on a local PC) so It won't impact on piracy at all and in fact they've probably just upped the amount of piracy that will happen by several 1000% by making their paying customers extremely annoyed (the polite version!).
- For some photographers who spend months on end in the bush (>180 days without internet), the licensing model will mean they lose the use of the software. Adobe have admitted that it will be a problem and will have to be dealt with 'specially'
All Adobe are doing is removing the need to make boxed products and introducing a continuous payment scheme that means you will end up paying a shed-load more for the same, and you own nothing if you stop paying.
What's the odds that as they add more features, they begin to up the cost of the 'rental' (sorry - subscription).
As I said Nick, you don't own CS6, no matter what you've paid for it.
"everyone seems to be falling for their smoke and mirrors info" - like who Nick; I haven't found a single post on any forum where anyone thinks this is even a remotely good idea !
I've downloaded CS6 4 or 5 times now because of the cocked application manager - funnily enough neither my MacPro or iMac have ever managed to hang on to the installation files and they seem to get deleted once the app is installed; so I wouldn't have a clue how one could pirate it.
The subscription method will doubtless lead to more consistent profits for Adobe which will keep the investors happy - we mustn't forget that must we!
I agree with virtually every word you've said Nick - you, me and everyone else are looking at the same coin toss here; it's just a case of some of us are convinced it's going to come up tails, and some of us are hoping it'll come up heads.
For me personally, even though as a Lightroom user I only use about 3% of Photoshops capabilities, I do use them a lot and I just cannot envisage working without it.
Yeah - technicaly, you don't own it, you have a 'perpetual license' - it amounts to the same thing . You lose the use of the software when you stop paying rental (sorry - subscription!) whereas for perpetual you lose the use of it when your machine can't run it any longer (and then there's always the option of keeping an older version going with a virtual PC). The only good thing with the renting vs 'buying' is that for the taxman, the rental costs are revenue and can be claimed immediately, whereas buying is capital and has to be written off over a few years.
As to pirating the downloads, if it can be downloaded and installed on your PC, it can be pirated too , and there'll be plenty of people ready & waiting.
It's a bad call by Adobe, they'll make money still, but they'll have alienated a big chunk of their paying customers. Apple found that to their cost with the debacle with Final Cut X. Adobe were quick to dance on Apple... now Corel are being quick to dance on Adobe - have you seen their 'letter' yet
Like you, I can't envisgae life without PS... but I only use a fraction of it's capabailities and in reality the ancient PS6 and CS2 would do 99.9% of what I use. While their 'new' features are great... the old versions will still do the same, but in a longer way. So CS5/CS6 it's gonna be until someone brings out a PS killer
BTW, is Adobe's share price still sliding? It had started to fall after their CC announcement... shareholders wouldn't have liked that
Since using LR I now only, as Andy said, use PS for final touches and most of those are only because I know PS better than LR. Maybe I will just have to process my shots to 95% finished. Which with my shots won't make a great deal of difference.
Once Adobe gave us the LR4/ACR 7/CS6 working environment, for me at least, a lot of the "tedious and awkward stuff" became a simple matter of button pushing and slider wanging. And don't even get me started on ACR smart objects !
Personally I don't want Photoshop CC and I didn't really want CS6 as there was nowt wrong with CS5.
But what I do want is a version of ACR that is 100% simpatico with Lightroom, and that translates Lightroom to Photoshop perfectly; and I want PV2012.
And LR4 + ACR 7 + CS6 fits the bill perfectly.
So the minute LR5 was put out there as a Beta test my heart sank because I knew the implications.
Then when I tried to install it I was horrified to see that I'd have to move from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion - so that dropped the Rosetta support for my Pulse printer profiler - cheers Adobe That's £900 for a new profiler thanks very much......
Lightroom 5 has some new bells and whistles that make life easier than it is in Lightroom 4 - now I've got 'em I want to keep 'em!
But in order to do that, and keep my existing LR4/ACR 7/CS6 style work flow, I need to have the full version of the new ACR 8 - and that means I've got to take PSCC - there is no way around it.
So yes, Adobe have boxed me into a corner.
I couldn't give a fig about CC's anti camera-shake filter just like I couldn't care less about CS6's content aware move tool - meaningless crap to hook idiots who can't use a damn camera into buying into the latest version. And Adobe say they don't cater for the amateur market - yeah, right!
So if you want to stay bang up to date then you've got to go with the flow to CC - and the monthly subscription model takes advantage of the fact that £17.58 per month is easier to find than £650+ in one lump.
Will Adobe lock you in to a 12 month contract and then double the monthly cost down the road - they might well do.
But I think they'd be suing a lot of people for busted contracts if they did and I don't think that fall-out from that would make the shareholders happy at all.
My own contract is up for renewal in December - so by then we might see which way the wind blows.
But if anyone has the idea that I'm some sort of unofficial Adobe Evangelist you'd better think again!
What's this Corel letter Nick?
PS. CS2 would do me fine if it spoke ACR8 Nick, except it couldn't do 32bit float point could it - damn, I can't remember
Found it.. it's actually more a blog entry than a letter -> here
And they've a special offer to hoover up any discontented (ex)Adobe customers -> here
Like you, I've problems with updating parts of my systems from 'Snoring Leopard' to 'Mounting Lion' - one way to beat the issues is to get hold of something like VMWare Fusion and run install & run SnoLeo as a virtual machine - then you can still use your old software under the new OS.
Adobe Evangelist.... thought their name was tattooed through you like a stick of rock - guess now it's just going to be stamped on your bank debit statements instead
Well Adobe will not be getting any money from me, I do have LR 4 cost me £49, CS 2 CS 3 & CS 5 cost me nowt as I was given them to do some work.
I got all the Corel stuff for £19 from having Bibble 5 Pro so I have after shot pro, PSP x5, video studio x5 Pro, and Nikon CNX2 but tend to just use Bibble 5 as I like it the most.
I think LR 5 will be the same as LR 4 a stand alone program but I will not be getting it with my money that's for sure.
Discussion
10 repliesI've posted my thoughts about the implications of Photoshop CC for CS6 users on my new Quora blog:
http://www.quora.com/Andy-Astbury/Photography-Thoughts-Musings-1
From my perspective, the change is purely to benefit Adobe and everyone seems to be falling for their smoke and mirrors info.
- The software has nothing to do with 'the cloud' and is still downloaded and installed on your PC/Mac (just as it is now)
- That means you still have to download updates and install them (just as happens now)
- Apparently updates to CC have been rather lacking in the last 12 months - sounds similar to the CS updates!
- It will still be pirated (because it's installed on a local PC) so It won't impact on piracy at all and in fact they've probably just upped the amount of piracy that will happen by several 1000% by making their paying customers extremely annoyed (the polite version!).
- For some photographers who spend months on end in the bush (>180 days without internet), the licensing model will mean they lose the use of the software. Adobe have admitted that it will be a problem and will have to be dealt with 'specially'
All Adobe are doing is removing the need to make boxed products and introducing a continuous payment scheme that means you will end up paying a shed-load more for the same, and you own nothing if you stop paying.
What's the odds that as they add more features, they begin to up the cost of the 'rental' (sorry - subscription).
Just my ha'penny thoughts
As I said Nick, you don't own CS6, no matter what you've paid for it.
"everyone seems to be falling for their smoke and mirrors info" - like who Nick; I haven't found a single post on any forum where anyone thinks this is even a remotely good idea !
I've downloaded CS6 4 or 5 times now because of the cocked application manager - funnily enough neither my MacPro or iMac have ever managed to hang on to the installation files and they seem to get deleted once the app is installed; so I wouldn't have a clue how one could pirate it.
The subscription method will doubtless lead to more consistent profits for Adobe which will keep the investors happy - we mustn't forget that must we!
I agree with virtually every word you've said Nick - you, me and everyone else are looking at the same coin toss here; it's just a case of some of us are convinced it's going to come up tails, and some of us are hoping it'll come up heads.
For me personally, even though as a Lightroom user I only use about 3% of Photoshops capabilities, I do use them a lot and I just cannot envisage working without it.
As to pirating the downloads, if it can be downloaded and installed on your PC, it can be pirated too
It's a bad call by Adobe, they'll make money still, but they'll have alienated a big chunk of their paying customers. Apple found that to their cost with the debacle with Final Cut X. Adobe were quick to dance on Apple... now Corel are being quick to dance on Adobe
Like you, I can't envisgae life without PS... but I only use a fraction of it's capabailities and in reality the ancient PS6 and CS2 would do 99.9% of what I use. While their 'new' features are great... the old versions will still do the same, but in a longer way. So CS5/CS6 it's gonna be until someone brings out a PS killer
BTW, is Adobe's share price still sliding? It had started to fall after their CC announcement... shareholders wouldn't have liked that
Personally I don't want Photoshop CC and I didn't really want CS6 as there was nowt wrong with CS5.
But what I do want is a version of ACR that is 100% simpatico with Lightroom, and that translates Lightroom to Photoshop perfectly; and I want PV2012.
And LR4 + ACR 7 + CS6 fits the bill perfectly.
So the minute LR5 was put out there as a Beta test my heart sank because I knew the implications.
Then when I tried to install it I was horrified to see that I'd have to move from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion - so that dropped the Rosetta support for my Pulse printer profiler - cheers Adobe
Lightroom 5 has some new bells and whistles that make life easier than it is in Lightroom 4 - now I've got 'em I want to keep 'em!
But in order to do that, and keep my existing LR4/ACR 7/CS6 style work flow, I need to have the full version of the new ACR 8 - and that means I've got to take PSCC - there is no way around it.
So yes, Adobe have boxed me into a corner.
I couldn't give a fig about CC's anti camera-shake filter just like I couldn't care less about CS6's content aware move tool - meaningless crap to hook idiots who can't use a damn camera into buying into the latest version. And Adobe say they don't cater for the amateur market - yeah, right!
So if you want to stay bang up to date then you've got to go with the flow to CC - and the monthly subscription model takes advantage of the fact that £17.58 per month is easier to find than £650+ in one lump.
Will Adobe lock you in to a 12 month contract and then double the monthly cost down the road - they might well do.
But I think they'd be suing a lot of people for busted contracts if they did and I don't think that fall-out from that would make the shareholders happy at all.
My own contract is up for renewal in December - so by then we might see which way the wind blows.
But if anyone has the idea that I'm some sort of unofficial Adobe Evangelist you'd better think again!
What's this Corel letter Nick?
PS. CS2 would do me fine if it spoke ACR8 Nick, except it couldn't do 32bit float point could it - damn, I can't remember
And they've a special offer to hoover up any discontented (ex)Adobe customers -> here
Like you, I've problems with updating parts of my systems from 'Snoring Leopard' to 'Mounting Lion' - one way to beat the issues is to get hold of something like VMWare Fusion and run install & run SnoLeo as a virtual machine - then you can still use your old software under the new OS.
Adobe Evangelist.... thought their name was tattooed through you like a stick of rock
I got all the Corel stuff for £19 from having Bibble 5 Pro so I have after shot pro, PSP x5, video studio x5 Pro, and Nikon CNX2 but tend to just use Bibble 5 as I like it the most.
I think LR 5 will be the same as LR 4 a stand alone program but I will not be getting it with my money that's for sure.
Phil.
So many of the major corporations employ the same strategy.
For the moment be glad they aren't doing their proper apps as software-as-a-service where the app runs from the internet...