Whats the verdict on Adobe CC?

[dasBlute]

Comparing CC to the older methods [buy every two years, etc], does not make sense to me.

You get the entire suit [yeah, with things you don't want/need.... until you do], at lower entry cost.
Never thought I'd edit a PDF, till I did, and found the ability useful. The lower entrance bar will also
bring more people into the Adobe market. Younger people.

Myself, I use curves, the occasional layer, and some toning, i.e. no 'power' user.
But I think it's a smart move on their part, and I like the product.

-Tim

[fishbulb]

Let's look at correct numbers. I paid $221.60 for CS6 upgrade in 2012. I know I paid extra to get the CD but I don't know how much. But that would be $12/mo.

Ah but that's the upgrade price. You conveniently ignore the fact that at some point everyone has to buy the full version before they can just buy upgrades. The full price of just Photoshop CS 6 (not the full suite of other applications) was $699 and for PS Extended it was $999. Then you've got to buy Lightroom 5 which was $149 (or $79 for the upgrade from LR 4, which was $300 new). So if you had never bought PS + LR before that's $848. Even if you never upgrade after that, amortizing it out that's 84 months, or seven years, to pay you back at $10 a month.

The $10 a month price for both PS + LR is a screaming deal by comparison. Plus, there is no large lump payment at the beginning of using the software, and upgrades are free. This is the direction all software is going in the future because it supplies he company with a more predictable, steady revenue stream instead of a big lump every few years. Microsoft and Apple are doing the same the as Adobe.

But, no one is making anyone use it. GIMP works fine for what it is, and you can organize your images with Light zone, Raw therapee, or whatever free program you want. For paid programs Capture One is supposed to be pretty good but I haven't used it.

[Greg Miller]

Ah but that's the upgrade price. You conveniently ignore the fact that at some point everyone has to buy the full version before they can just buy upgrades. The full price of just Photoshop CS 6 (not the full suite of other applications) was $699 and for PS Extended it was $999. Then you've got to buy Lightroom 5 which was $149 (or $79 for the upgrade from LR 4, which was $300 new). So if you had never bought PS + LR before that's $848. Even if you never upgrade after that, amortizing it out that's 84 months, or seven years, to pay you back at $10 a month.

The $10 a month price for both PS + LR is a screaming deal by comparison. Plus, there is no large lump payment at the beginning of using the software, and upgrades are free. This is the direction all software is going in the future because it supplies he company with a more predictable, steady revenue stream instead of a big lump every few years. Microsoft and Apple are doing the same the as Adobe.

But, no one is making anyone use it. GIMP works fine for what it is, and you can organize your images with Light zone, Raw therapee, or whatever free program you want. For paid programs Capture One is supposed to be pretty good but I haven't used it.

You would be the exception. When Adobe switched to the CC model, millions of people already owned their copy of Photoshop. Then you have all the people who purchased their new copy of Photoshop via an educational license, which was cheap and allowed upgrades to the "regular" version at the normal upgrade price. Even if you paid the full $700 purchase price, amortized over a 30 year use period, it comes down to $2/month. And you owned it. You didn't have to keep paying for it to use it. If you upgraded every other version you were essentially paying $8 month (if you elected to pay anything)

Everyone knows this is the way software vendors are going. They love being able to make you pay every month or you take away access to the software.

[David R Munson]

Are people still arguing about this? If you don't like the subscription, don't subscribe. Stick with whatever aging version of Photoshop you have and grumble about it until the day you die. Meanwhile, I'll happily pay my subscription fee for what I consider to be excellent software at a reasonable rate that is constantly kept up to date. I like having the entire suite at my disposal and being able to afford having it there legitimately. I bough the suite in college in 2002 and it was great, until it started to go out of date and couldn't afford to keep it updated. I ended up keeping it updated, but not aboveboard. Now it's all legal again, everything works as it should, new features are getting better by the week, etc. It's a good scene. I'd rather flow with the way things are in this case than try to resist and spend my energy embittering myself with shit I can't do anything about when it would be better spent outside with a camera.

[Greg Miller]

Who's grumbling? If you targeting me, then you misinterpreted my words. I stated I did not like renting software (an opinion) and why, and provided an alternative looks at the costs. If have a calm headed discussion about the situation is grumbling, then I guess you can count me as guilty.

[David R Munson]

No targeting! Nothing aimed at you, Greg! But there *is* grumbling. Real, curmudgeonly grumbling.

[Greg Miller]

Well, it is a site full of curmudgeons talking about 50+ year old equipment and processes. Not much grumbling going on around here

[djdister]

At some future point I will probably have to move to CC, but for the current time CS6 is still working just fine and nothing is forcing me to make the change.

[David R Munson]

Well, it is a site full of curmudgeons talking about 50+ year old equipment and processes. Not much grumbling going on around here

Ha! And I say "curmudgeonly" knowing full well that others would use it to describe me in plenty of other capacities. It's not all bad. We all grumble about something.

[jp]

Let's look at correct numbers. I paid $221.60 for CS6 upgrade in 2012. I know I paid extra to get the CD but I don't know how much. But that would be $12/mo. if I upgraded every 18 months. Or $6/month if upgraded every other version, which is what many people did (and is where I am at since I am still using and felling no pain nor envy). The biggest difference is that with the purchase you would not lose access to your image files. With CC, if you stop paying, you no longer have software to access your .psd files. You want to make a print? Too bad. You want to make a jpg for a web site? Too bad. How confident is anyone that when they retire they can continue to pay the monthly fee? Doctor bills, prescription medicine, hospital bills,... $10/month assuming it stays that low, might be a hard nut to pay.

Would you rather pay $120 a month to own a car or $100 a month to lease? At least with a car you have the option.

Worst case, you'd have to get the 30 day free fully functional demo version installed so you could save your PSDs to another format. As Kirk has mentioned there are other options for opening files as well.

Comparing software to a car is apples and oranges. You never own software unless you make it yourself or have it custom made by a programmer on staff, and even then it's largely made with building blocks you don't own such as runtime libraries and open source code. When you "buy software", you are buying a license to use it, which is full of restrictions just like leased software. It's sort of like having the CS6 cd/dvd is like Vivian Maier's negatives; you've got the materials, someone else might have the rights, but a lot more clear cut with software because it was planned that way.

I know the car question is rhetorical, but I'd take the ownership option so I could buy just liability insurance rather than full coverage as the leasing company would require.