I thank you guys for your encouraging words. I am hurting about this right now. It isn't just the CS6 but also the other software that adds special effects or filtration etc.

It is best to avoid them to be honest. I'll have no end of trouble. I also am a photo-realist. This means I only ever would gently tweak an image anyway. Small changes like that can be handled by other softwares easily.

I may be wrong about the risks of their new ways of licensing but I'm not wrong about the company's ethics. There are way too many others experiencing exactly the same sorts of issues.

The only real barrier for me is the learning of GIMP. I already use Vuescan on Linux and there are calibration software packages for monitor calibration with Eye-One or whatever it is that I used to use for monitor calibration. (Monitors are pretty good straight out of the box these days though)

I'm not going to keep sookin'. I'll go and try to upgrade my daughters new Linux Mint 18.2 to run the nightly-build of GIMP. I think every computer in the house is running Linux - all 8 or so.