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Adobe Creative Suite Going Subscription-Only
First time accepted submitter JDG1980 writes "According to CNET and various other sources, CS6 will be the last version of Adobe's Creative Suite that will be sold in the traditional manner. All future versions will be available by subscription only, through Adobe's so-called 'Creative Cloud' service. This means that before too long, anyone who wants an up-to-date version of Photoshop won't be able to buy it – they will have to pay $50 per month (minimum subscription term: one year). Can Adobe complete the switch to subscription-only, or will the backlash be too great? Will this finally spur the creation of a real competitor to Photoshop?"
For this to work Adobe will have to 'break' older versions with patches.
Adobe beat Microsoft to it... Adobe Rent for $50 per month.
Microsoft said they would be doing this years ago (after people found ways to avoid paying MS Tax).
I wonder how much Microsoft Rent will be for Windows & Office.
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
and it was annoying. When will companies learn? Not everyone wants to be tethered to the internet to run their apps...
* A world imprisoned screams with pain There are no leaders you can blame Your avarice destroyed your sphere And the
Corporate suicide Microsoft style, only they are not nearly as entrenched.
Creative Suite is just another in a long line of products that Adobe will convince its customer base to abandon... FLEX, FLASH, Pagemaker, the list is endless.
GIMP!
I have never known a release of creative cloud subscription CS apps to stay working 100% for *anybody* for several months at a time, let alone a whole year. From Internet outages, adobe's abysmal registration and support, to paying but finding day or week long delays until the apps actually detect registration is valid. I gave up after less than a year and bought cs6 in February this year.
And I'm a total adobe fan otherwise.
What the hell are adobe thinking? Of ways to make sure their apps are pirated even harder?
Guess I need not worry about having the software available in the labs
the end of photoshop
I guess the good news is that I have a real impetus to get a lot better at Gimp now...
I like it. Unless you skip a version or two, the $50/month for the entire suite is a better price. The release is every year or two, so it costs $600-$1200 per version, vs the $2400 for the entire suite. If you only use two items, then this pricing is better or about equal.
That stinks. It's just another way to suck money out of people's wallets.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Good luck Adobe, that'll also be the last product I buy from you as well. I will not support such a service and forcing me into this subscription service just because you think I really need your product, think again. I'll be happy with CS6 for years to come, in fact, I would have been happy with even the old versions of Photoshop, but the only reason you forced me to upgrade was because your old version does not support newer versions of cameras. I can live with that, I can just import the RAW files into Bibble (Who constantly strive to support every camera out there) and edit in Photoshop then. You guys are shooting yourself in the foot, since the majority of legitimate users of Photoshop are professional users, not consumers, who hold the same belief.
I will not upload anything to your "Cloud". I will not support going back to the 80's with terminal sessions.
This will force the people that actually profit from it and use it professionally to step up and buy. The casual users like myself will continue to use outdated versions happily since it does 90% of what I want to do, 100% better than anything else available Heck, I'm still using PageMaker 6.5 for some stuff.
Yup, all 2 of them!
This is a horrible idea. Honestly, this is probably the worst idea I have ever heard.
Photoshop is the industry standard. You have a steady supply of income. But you do not have your customers by the balls. They can and will switch to other software the minute it becomes avalable. Especially since most people using photoshop at their jobs are going to be editing huge files, and they certainly don't want to have to wait for those to upload before they can get cracking.
Hell, the GIMP isn't too bad any more. Not ready for prime-time, but with a bit of work (and an entirely new interface) it could be a viable competitor. In a world with out the GIMP and where everybody had Google fiber, this could feasibly work. But we don't live in that, as your stock prices and market share will no doubt soon show.
Adobe underestimates how much it benefits from piracy. If poor college students can't cut their teeth on the full Adobe suite, they're likely to learn how to use something else. When those students go out and get jobs, they're more likely to use what they're used to than drop a bundle on Adobe software they've never used before.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
It is a challenging proposition: force customers to rent and provide no option to own. This is a natural fit for services, but becomes rather odd for a commodity. It is hard to understand how, in the consumer market, a company can successfully force a customer to pay for a service that they don't use: if I only use Photoshop in March and June, why on earth should I pay for April and May? Subscription models work very well in business, particularly in large organizations, but this will be interesting to watch unfold in the consumer market.
I doubt it'll spur competition, because everyone will just stick with CS6.
I'm not a multi media production expert, but CS6 seems to be pretty feature complete, and if you ever wanted to go further than that, there is always Processing or max/msp, and third party plugins for After Effects, Premeire, and Photoshop.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
I've used Paint Shop Pro any time I needed to do anything that Paint couldn't handle. I'm just curious what advanced users are getting out of Photoshop that seems to make it the go-to editor for power users.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
It's photoshop, illustrator, indesign, acrobat pro, fireworks, dreamweaver, after-effects and a whole bunch of others.
Damn I wish there were open source versions of any of those that had all the features pros need (as opposed to just the ones oss coders find interesting)
I use a dongle key at work to run subscription CAD software. The key gets updated once a year. The software doesn't work without an updated key.
Except at home, where I have the same software with a "patch" that emulates a valid dongle without the need or updates.
How long until someone makes a "patch" that redirects all calls from the software to a local authentication server?
My guess is this is a move to combat widespread piracy among home users. The benefit to home user's pirating your software is that people get to know your product, and then want to use it at work. That's one of the big reasons why MS has turned a blind eye to small time home piracy. Those home users aren't going to pay a $200+ license (or a $50/month subscription) so allowing them to pirate doesn't equate to a lost sale, it encourages companies to stick with a product their workforce is familiar with, and it ultimately get the vendor sales through those companies.
Basically I think they may be shooting themselves in the foot, but not in the way the summary implies. The companies who buy adobe products probably aren't going to baulk at the switch (and in fact a subscription makes things easier on start-ups since they don't have the overhead of a much more expensive license). It's going to hurt them because there will likely be less people familiar with their product in/entering the workforce. They can offset that somewhat by giving it away/giving heavy discounts to education sectors, but at the end of the day if the person can't fire it up on their home computer free/cheap it's going to make a difference.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Your (and Adobe's) scheme rests upon the misconception that everyone wants the latest and greatest everything.
I have CS6. If they came out with CS7, I'd probably wait a year (or longer) before buying it, because CS6 does everything I need.
Another thing companies like Adobe forget (Microsoft STILL hasn't learned) is that UI changes SUCK for the end user. I am at maximum productivity and you want to mess up my nuts-n-bolts memory (of how to use the software)? Fark you.
I used to use GIMP exclusively. I could probably switch back and get 90% of everything I need. That last 10% would be painful to give up, but I suppose I could learn to do without. So, I'll keep running CS6 until I can't install it anymore (Hello, Poser!) and then move to Gimp.
Yeah, right.
I know two people that use photoshop and *always* eventually upgrade to the latest version within a year or two (stupid fanatics; no offense). I can tell you right now that neither of them is going to stand for this and one of them is definitely going to send Adobe one or more very scathing emails to tell them that he will never buy anything of theirs again and to explain to them how they are a bunch of idiots making a very stupid mistake (and is highly likely to call them up in person and yell at them to drill the point home) .
Extrapolating from there, Adobe will lose all of their Photoshop customers within a couple of years, but it will be a boon to their customer service department which will have to hire more hard-as-nails customer service reps to answer angry phone calls and to answer hate mail...
The really interesting part of this seems to be that Adobe gets to keep all the money from the licensing. Previously, if you wanted a license, you'd go to some reseller, and they'd get part of the money, as would a distributor, and maybe ever a couple other companies along the way. This is basically a game changer. Adobe believes (and it's probably true) that it's popular enough that they don't need resellers and other people pushing their products, and that they can do good enough business just selling direct to the end user. As much as I like the idea of subscription software, I do like the idea of the middle man being cut out, since most of the time they offer very little value to the end customer, and can only really make prices higher, or at the very best, bleed out money from the process would have been better served going back to the people creating the product. It's the equivalent of music labels selling directly to end users without going through the music stores (be they online or physical stores/records)
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Long ago (in internet years) there was a software company that thought that their customers should not only pay for their image processing software (for creating spherical panoramas), but also purchase a separate license for every pano they created. Their thinking was that people were already used to paying to develop every roll of film they shot so why not get them used to paying for every digital image they “developed”. Now what was the name of that software company... I wonder what ever became of them...
Can Adobe complete the switch to subscription-only, or will the backlash be too great? Will this finally spur the creation of a real competitor to Photoshop?
Yes.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
There are already a lot of smaller competitors to Photoshop, at least for photographic work.
The main one From Apple itself is Aperture. It's not really a photoshop competitor exactly, but where it does become one is the range of plugins that support it now - pretty much most of the powerful image editing tools have Aperture plugins, so I can do fairly advanced editing in Aperture without ever touching Photoshop.
I always bought Photoshop before because it was still useful in some cases, but don't see any need to pay forever for Photoshop after version 6.0 - or at any rate not yearly, I think you can buy access for just a single month, which I many do at some point in the distant future.
What is really needed now to help bury Photoshop is for Aperture to offer some easier mechanism to turn on and off adjustments made by plugins, right now they just finish with a new TIFF version of your image.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I've had a full PS license for years, currently on CS6. But my need for it is very much less than my preference for maintaining my own software and update schedules, and avoiding recurring costs. It will therefore be the last.
Bye guys!
I was buying the update to the full CS master suite every couple years. This works out a little cheaper, especially the first year with upgrade pricing.
It does suck for you photoshop-only people!
We need to have version control for some plugins we use. If there are no controls to prevent new versions from being loaded then it will be imposible to version control
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
$50 / month is a great deal for your primary work tools. It's much better than the old "Master Collection," which clocked in at over $2500 plus upgrade fees every other year. If you use more than one Adobe product, this saves you money and probably gets you more of the suite than you had before. (If you only use one app you can subscribe for a less appealing $20/month).
Also, let's get real: if people could switch to GIMP, they would have already done it. It's just not there yet. The type of user who was willing to pay $600 for Photoshop two months ago is simply not going to put up with GIMP's shortcomings and quirks.
I suspect that 90% of the "backlash" will come from people who were pirating the software anyway. These people were not customers to begin with.
This pricing seemed off. Sure enough, TFA:
So if you want Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. etc., the suite will be $50/mo. If you only want Photoshop, it's $10/mo. Furthermore, if you really only need software for a month, you can rent the suite for $75.
I can't say I'm a big fan of subscription only (even MS is keeping some purchase options for Office), but pricing like this does create some winners (besides Adobe). Short term projects, for example, may benefit from being able to purchase what was a $2500 package for only a month or two at $75/month. The losers, of course, are those that purchase upgrades infrequently and use their software for years.
Frankly, I'm tempted by $10/mo for Illustrator. The retail box of CS6 is $540, and I have no product from which to upgrade. So for the cost of the boxed version (with its potential resale or upgrade value factored in), I get 4 1/2 years of use of the latest version. One key difference is I can easily drop it after 1 year (and $120), if I don't need it any more. Still, I understand how abandoning box sales will make some people unhappy.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
My wife is a budding professional photographer, and my son is highly creative and in middle school. Both get a lot of use out of Photoshop, but we can barely afford one permanent license. It's a purchase I'm willing to make only because it opens up future opportunities for both of them.
But if Adobe's going to want about that same amount of money every year, I just don't see how we can justify the cost. We might have to suck it up and hope we can get the same functionality with a collection of much cheaper / free tools.
"This only hurts pirates, not customers."
Wrong. Many customers want to be able to work without an active internet connection. Many places internet connections are not available, not reliable and slow. Now customers will just not bother upgrading or buying. This loses customers from Adobe.
Pirates will run with the old versions selling those or they'll crack the new versions. The pirate customers won't care either way. This only hurts customers and then in the long run Adobe and their stockholders.
Fail.
I've been a user of Creative Cloud since it came out with CS6. I've been a big fan.
Adobe bundles a lot of extra software in here that's beyond the base CS Master Collection. The Adobe Edge apps, for instance, were never available in the perpetual license or boxed CS. You also get some limited hosting, typekit account, online storage, and some other stuff.
As far as price, it's a mixed bag. If you were previously a Master Collection user, you would save money over upgrading every year. You'd come out about the same upgrading every other year. If you upgraded less often than that, you'd be paying more.
If you only want a single app, you can get it for $20 a month. Photoshop Extended CS6 was $999, so that would be 50 months until you're paying more. That's a good deal.
Where it gets tough is if you were upgrading from focused versions of the suite, like Design Standard or Production Premium. You get more apps than you were before, but if you didn't need the full set before, you're paying more for apps you don't need.
I think this is a great opportunity for the Open Source Community to showcase what really can be done with apps like The GIMP. There is admittedly work to be done for vector apps, but they are coming along.... Other than using Photoshop specific filters, there really isn't anything Photoshop can do that I can't do in GIMP... Why pay Adobe for their overpriced bloatware?
I usually work with one version of CS for years, and haven't even upgraded to CS6 yet. So I'm not worried. Lots of time for someone to come up with a reasonable replacement. But CS Cloud Subscription? Um, no, sorry.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
In my region, unless you're extremely lucky and can find an open dslam to even hope to get DSL, the only option is cable internet through a small vendor which limits upload speed to .5 mbps. Looks like 1/3 or better of my day is going to be wasted uploading files to edit...
I'm just curious - I've read a little bit about the "Intellectual Property" issues surrounding software and such, but not yet run across the "Imaginary Property" group and this specific view towards music and musicians. What is their primary argument in support of that view?
Is this just a bad troll, or is the author going to come by later and desperately try to claim it was a satirical look at bad trolling?
Renting software (that is what Adobe is proposing after all) only works when there are no good alternatives, free or otherwise. But there are good alternatives such as The GIMP and it also just happens to be free. Can you imagine how fast the cash-strapped governments and companies of the world would dump Windows and move to Ubuntu (or some other reasonably friendly flavor of Linux) and OpenOffice or LibreOffice for those users who only need computers to browse, do e-mail, and produce documents and spreadsheets if Microsoft did this with Windows? (That fact that it's already happening to an extent only bears this thinking out.) This plan seems to be a rather bad move on Adobe's part.
Incidentally, I use OpenOffice on my Macs to produce documents and it's marvelous. It's got a couple very minor document painting glitches but on the whole it's a solid piece of software and I find it easier to use than Word.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
If you're stretched for cash, consider either Photoshop Elements or one of the other competitors like Corel PaintShop Pro.
Just depends on who their target users are, and if they've evaluated them correctly. The subscription model, with the constant drain on your bank account, serves the professional user - i.e, one who earns their living using Photoshop. I have customers, like the graphics arts departments of corporations, who this is tailor made for. Who it does NOT serve is the single proprietor or casual user. A lot of those have used Photoshop - usually not the latest version - simply because it was the industry standard and they could exchange files with larger organizations. There's no way on earth they'll continue to do so with a subscription model, so Adobe will lose those customers. They'll probably lose many education customers, too.
Question is whether the increased revenue from larger customers will compensate. Adobe is guessing yes. My guess is, it 'll be successful for a year, maybe two - but the reign of Photoshop, and the rest of the Creative Suite as "the standard" begins to wind down now.
That is freaking ridiculous. I guess CS5.5 will be my version for a good while.
I don't think I'd grudge them $10 a month. But for $50 per month, they can go screw themselves.
(And from the other comments here it looks like they are.)
Captcha - "frauds"; true dat. I really admire the embedded AI in the Slashdot Captcha tool. It says in 1-2 words what takes me a paragraph.
One: how many people actually purchase Photoshop *now*? Aren't like 99.999% of all photoshop installs pirated?
Two: to those rare people who do actually purchase Photoshop, how many of them would have any need for whatever would be in hypothetical new versions, as opposed to just using the one they already have a copy of?
It's no different to iTunes/Spotify's appraoch. Make it affordable, make it convenient, and people will pay for it rather than pirate it.
People who were pirating and don't have the $ to spare will continue to pirate (the old versions). No lost revenue for Adobe there, no real harm done to the pirates - they still have some great software to use.
My *friend* just signed up for the office cloud. He thinks it's a great idea. If it's convenient and reasonably priced people will pay for it. He thinks it's a PITA to try and find a cracked copy without trojans etc... especially if you reinstall a lot or want to keep up to date.
He would like to do the same for adobe but he only uses a few of their products (Photoshop + Lightroom). While convenient, $50 a month is too much for him for the amount he uses it so he will continue to use his cracked copies until he can justify the price. If it was a pay per use / pay per hour, or perhaps cheaper, or if they had different pricing for home/commercial then Adobe would be converting a whole lot more of people like him into customers.
Hahaha, what are you on about?
exact analog
I think this is the first time I've ever read that particular oxymoron.
I lost patience with Adobe long ago. I know Gimp isn't as good as Photoshop. But it does 98% of the stuff I need to do and it's hard to argue with FREE. Inkscape is coming along very nicely now too. Getting off of their upgrade treadmill is a relief.
Oh, yeah! Wise guy, huh? Woob woob woob woob! Nyuk! Nyuk!
Deal with it.
So you're now defining "pirate" to mean "anyone who sticks with old, legally purchased versions and doesn't snap to attention to give money to a large corporation when they release an incremental upgrade"? So, when I legally purchased a copy of Windows 7 from one of Microsoft's approved retailers recently, I'm now a pirate because Windows 8 is available for sale and I didn't purchase THAT instead?
I mean, I take a snarky attitude towards people who try to short-circuit certain arguments by claiming there's only one True Pure Definition(tm) of piracy, but even I think you're pushing it now. People/organizations who normally would save $600 or so a year by not upgrading Photoshop when Adobe cracks the whip until it has something worth upgrading for won't have this option now. Now they'll be forced to hop on the subscription treadmill to even use the program in the first place and then keep paying out to CONTINUE to use it. That definitely hurts non-pirates doing perfectly legal things, and I mean that in a concrete, common-sense "legal" way, not the handwavey sort involving desperate rationalizations about quasi-utopian ideals.
This isn't the analogue of a "live performance," it's the analog of paid streaming. The analog of a live performance is professional support, and the analog of commission is paying to have features developed.
Straw polls.
When I purchase software, it counts as a capital expense against my cost center. If, however, I enter into a rental agreement of this sort, it counts as an expense against my cost center. This will more or less mean that departments will no longer be able to obtain Adobe software since we're constant under pressure to keep operating expenses down. The software is no longer an amortizable asset, but instead gets counted as overhead (not to mention, this sort of licensing scheme incurs overhead in its own right to manage).
The practical upshot is that this makes Adobe products far more expensive for a company, and far less desirable overall.
Oh it's great, pricewise. I applaud the constant updates from Adobe, for the one cost. I applaud the flexibility of only paying for the apps you use when you need them.
Photoshop all the time for the photographer I am all the time, but only paying for Illo and Indesign as my employment needs it? brilliant.
I'm one of the early adopters though, who picked up CS6 as a creative cloud registration. Waking up early on a day set aside for a job that needed an app that suddenly needs rego, but finding out it's fallen out of rego because Adobe hadn't charged me for that month, or because I'd been charged but their servers lagged on telling my software it was registered, or their updater on my machine being the only piece of software that believed there was no internet connection... That wasn't worth it, and I happily paid the regular suite price just to get out of that hell.
Top marks for the idea, D- for implementation.
Software-as-a-service with a subscription fee is the exact analog of a live performance for software.
It seems to me like it's the exact analog of paying the artist every month to listen to the mp3 recording.
The same group of people is not advocating both positions.
Finally a chance for Gimp and Linux. I don't know how often I had to hear: I cannot switch to Linux, there is no Photoshop and Gimp sucks. I was always surprised how many professional graphic designers constantly hang out in all kind of forums to tell the world how bad Gimp is. Now we will see how superior Photoshop really is, when it cannot be copied anymore.
Unless some Adobe guy comes and edits my photos for me, it's not a live performance. Their programmers don't write what I run as I run it. The software is written once and copied millionfold. There is nothing live about it.
Besides, everybody recognizes that Adobe is well within their right to choose to rent out the software instead of selling copies. The discussion is about whether we as customers want this too and whether Adobe is making a wise choice. Personally I believe that they will get away with it, because even though there is technically nothing spectacularly difficult about developing a graphics editor, Adobe still has no viable competition. The GIMP people apparently do not want to compete with Adobe and everybody else doesn't seem to have the manpower to do it all. You can fault OpenOffice for a lot of things, but at least they know what commercial software they're competing with and they are not ashamed to deliver what the people want: a free and open copy.
It is Slashdot, after all, but I think the commentary here is hilarious. Yes, for slapping together some basic graphics, The Gimp will suffice, but get real - nobody is paying you Gimp guys much more than pocket lint for your graphic aptitude. Think of all the anti-Flash rants here and you'll get an idea of what graphic artists think of your graphics skills.
Nobody likes The Gimp except for Zed, and Zed's dead, baby.
mainly that most implementations of "intellectual" property becomes integrated into culture, at which point the creator loses control over his/her creation and instead becomes a shared artifact. Therefore, only "Imaginary" rights allow the creator to interfere with how we store, transform etc. their work. thus, "imaginary property rights".
and yes, I for one is very pleased with this bold move by adobe - and I certainly wish that the music industry once and for all would make it clear that we buy nothing but a piece of plastic with no inherent value (I don't use iTunes and I don't think amazons services are available here, so CD's are still the most common media) which is not even refundable (although the unopened casing is), and preferably they'd include a detailed license with my next music purchase.
How KIND of Adobe for this wonderful offer. I will be amongst those people falling over themselves to pay for a product which gives them less than 2 years use when before it would've lasted a lifetime. Thanks also go to Microsoft for leading the way into this sparkling new future with their newly branded Office 360 software.
New frontiers are being explored here. I dream of a world where we can play with cute 'apps' like Photoshop brimming with DRM goodness in the 'Creative Cloud' on a single-screen metro GUI using the laggy touchscreens of our tablets. Glory!
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
creatative professionals != gimp coders.
Graphics people could decide to contribute money to the project and feature requests but coding, don't hold your breath. All of the best graphics people I know couldn't code there way out of a paper bag, no offense to paper bags, some of my best friends are paper bags.
TODO create witty sig.
The good is the additional options (not explained in the summary). $75 per month to rent the software is nice if you just need it for a quick project but don't want the buy the whole thing. $10 a month is reasonable for one of the programs assuming you usually buy the latest version. In fact, the $50 a month is probably a great deal if you usually buy the latest version anyway.
However, this destroys is the ability to invest in a product for a one-time fee and then get as much use out of that project as you can. For example, suppose you purchased Photoshop CS4 for $700 when it was released (October 2008) and found that it suited your needs just fine. As the upgrades came, you evaluated them and didn't think you needed any of the new features. So you kept using your Photoshop CS4 license as CS5 and 6 came out.
For 4 1/2 years, you haven't needed to budget money every month for an upgrade to the software. With the subscription-only model, though, it would rapidly need to become a line item on anyone's budget. If too many software products did this, it would limit how many programs people would buy. Spending $$$ for software once every few years is something people can manage. (Use the older version longer if times are lean, upgrade if money is flowing nicely.) Spending $50 a month for each piece of software you use would quickly become a huge financial burden on most people.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The next time that I am in the RV park in Yellowstone, and I want to edit the photos that I have taken, I will remember that I can't use CS6. Photoshop Elements works fine for me, so maybe that puts the shot in my own foot.
--web--
This will force the people that actually profit from it and use it professionally to step up and buy.
Only if the new features are actually enough of an improvement to justify an "upgrade" from what we already paid for. Buying a reasonably recent version of CS puts you far ahead of the cheap/FOSS equivalents for professional work, but I haven't seen a single compelling argument for upgrading any further in a long time.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
No, SaaS is the exact analog of services like Pandora and Spotify. It's just paying a continuous fee to have the same previously recorded bits put on your computer repeatedly. The equivalent of a live performance would be paying the developers to manipulate your images on the fly when you needed to do something that you couldn't do yourself with the software. (Not quite equivalent, but more realistic, would be paying for support on an as-needed basis.)
I think very few artists would be proficient enough at programming to contribute to software as complex as photo manipulation software.
We use a lot of things that we have no idea how it works, or how to build it.
...since before CS, I suspect that I'll be looking at alternatives.
I don't use it enough to justify having an umbilical attached.
However, The GIMP ain't it. The UX on that puppy is pretty much unusable. I'll probably be looking at smaller, platform-focused ones like Sketch and Pixelmator.
You don't need to be connected to the internet to use the Creative Cloud. It's just software that's on your computer. It checks your license once every 30 days, so you need to go on the internet once per month.
My last Adobe upgrade (CS5) cost me $650 and has served me well for 3 years. CS6 at $50 a month will cost me $3600. I do get a discounted initial rate, but this is only guaranteed for a year. I only hope they get the backlash they deserve, at least from the larger prepress companies. The older pros I know don't like this, but the younger designers don't really know anything else and it allows them to come into the program with less money upfront. I see CS5 being viable for a long time.
No, Adobe's genius simply cannot be ever matched. Only they know how to twiddle the bits like they do. Everything they do is golden. I want to lick their toes and fellate the CEO and suckle the nipples of their code monkeys..! I JUST LOVE ADOBE!1111
/s
Because not everyone felt this way.
I have no issue whatsoever with paying $10-$15 for a music album. I've got hundreds, and as a mobile DJ I even subscribe to more than one record pool. The catch here is that I get my music in bog standard, DRM-free, universally playable MP3 format, every time.
Where the Adobe software becomes an issue is that proprietary formats abound in their suite. PSD, AI, and PDF are somewhat-cross-compatible, but After Effects, Premiere, Flash, Audition, and Dreamweaver all have a more proprietary project file format that doesn't easily slip into an alternative. With plastic disc versions of software, I can be certain that I can always use the software, and I can always be guaranteed that my project files will open correctly and that the UI will remain the same until I decide to upgrade. By contrast, to use Facebook as an example, many people have been averse to the changes that have been made, particularly since Timeline.
Creative Cloud brings few benefits to users that couldn't have been made otherwise. Why not have feature-based DLC with separately downloadable installers. Image-Line does this with FL Studio, and it's worked out very well for them. Creative Cloud doesn't run in the browser, it makes it a requirement to store project files in "The Cloud". There's also no impetus for them to continue adding new features in due time; "continued access to your own data" is the killer feature for them.
I don't trust Creative Cloud. I don't trust Adobe independent of plastic discs.
that could be used by adobe.
This does not require an active internet connection to use other than a monthly check of your subscription. Please stop with the lies.
I don't want to 'rent' software.
I'd heard that Adobe had just recently stopped selling their products on CD/DVD's and only had downloadable. I don't really like that as that I really prefer to keep physical install media, but I can live without if need be.
But, renting software, is unacceptable to me.
What happens after awhile if for some reason, I can't or don't wish to connect said computer to the internet to check in? I just go dark and that's acceptable?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Why use photoshop when you can use paint.net. I'm sure there are lots of cool things photoshop still does better, but paint.net hands down is the best free imaging editor i have seen in a long time.
From the Creative Cloud FAQ:
Do Creative Cloud members need to be connected to the Internet to use the products?
No. Members need an Internet connection to download the desktop tools to their computer. They do not need to be online to use the products. Of course, an Internet connection is required at times to make sure their software is up-to-date and to verify their membership is active (paid for). And of course, they need to be online to collaborate and ensure the content on their desktop Creative Cloud folder and their online Creative Cloud storage is in sync. But otherwise, customers use our products just like they have in the past. The products run on their computer (not the Internet).
Looks like it's the year of the GIMP... not really.
Half true, half Scotsma fallacy>. Once it was color management, now it's the oh-so-indispensable 16 bits per channel. I have the impression that many of you whiners don't even *want" a viable alternative t Photoshop, lest you be forced (poor you) to learn something new.
Guess what? I've got bad news for you!
What's your next Scotsman?
Furrfu. Had to be said.
It seems there's a lot of confusion as to what the Adobe Creative Cloud is. I currently subscribe to Adobe Creative Cloud at the $50 per month rate. Here's what I get...
Adobe CS6 Master Collection
-- Everything, not just Photoshop
-- Usually around $2600 when purchased as a standalone program
-- At $50 per month, I could only upgrade every 4 1/3 years
-- But I get continuous updates
-- I can install ACC on two computers
-- One can be OSX and the other Windows
-- You can't do this with purchased apps
-- Apps are installed locally
-- Don't have to be online to use apps
-- Unless you're past the current expiration of your subscription
-- Data files are stored locally
-- Don't have to use cloud storage
Subscription options:
-- $20/month - One Application, No Commitment
-- $20/month - All Applications, Annual Commitment, Students and Teachers (K-12 and College)
-- $50/month - All Applications, Annual Commitment (What I have)
-- $75/month - All Applications, No Commitment
So, while you may still have some qualms about a subscription model, remember not to spread FUD or inaccurate information.
I void warranties.
Just tried to sign up to give this a go for a month. Already, it tells me my credit card number is wrong, and it can't process my payment. Uhhh wtf Adobe. I've bought lots of stuff from you before. This doesn't bode well...
How in the hell are they going to handle large scale enterprise or educational software deployments? Hand out an org's login and password? Set a licensing server? FU Adobe. FU good.
Adobe could very easily lose this market within a few years - they've already lost the trust of most of their professional customers, and for many this move will be the last straw. It's a gift for their competitors, this is the perfect time for them to step up a gear and poach a lot of the userbase of Adobe software.
Unfortunately, at the moment their competitors are mostly older and/or illegal versions of their own products. I doubt tools like the GIMP or Inkscape are ever going to be appealing to the professional market who have paid for CS up to this point, and certainly not any time soon.
What would be interesting is if this move prompted someone more dangerous to step into the market. There are companies out there who probably have the resources to make a serious play for some or all of the territory held by Adobe if it looks like a golden opportunity is coming along. Of course, the bad news is that they might want to go for a subscription-only/SaaS model from the start as well, since it's basically all upside for the vendor as long as they can find a pricing point people will tolerate and actually pay while they complain about it.
Wildcard for the day: someone we've never heard of, probably with a much smaller team of smart and customer-friendly people, sees an opportunity and exploits it through some non-conventional means. Whether or not it was the vehicle for such a move, Kickstarter has shown a couple of relevant things in terms of market forces already. For one thing, no-one is making the 8/9 figure budgets everyone assumes would be necessary to take on an incumbent giant like Adobe that way, at least not so far. But on the other hand, someone with a compelling vision, a market crying out for a certain kind of product, and a niche to exploit can raise a few million. With a few million to fund a small, smart development team and the backing of an enthusiastic community movement, you could do some serious damage to a dinosaur like Adobe.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
http://www.ontakingpictures.com/2013/05/the-good-and-the-bad-of-adobe-creative-cloud/
I've been in the design industry going back to Photoshop 5. This well before there was such a thing as Creative Suite, before Adobe bought Macromedia and before Quark made such a mess of their desktop publishing application that everyone switched to InDesign.
Adobe has a complete monopoly on the design industry. In the US I've never come across a designer that doesn't use Adobe products. Using anything else is a surefire way to be ostracized and struggle to find a job. Overseas, where Adobe software tends to be more expensive, and design culture isn't as entrenched in a particular mindset as it is in the US, you sometimes saw other software used. But it was rare and most who couldn't afford Creative Suite just pirated it. Often, the best case was that they'd get a single license and then crack it for use on multiple machines.
In the US, the design industry has screwed itself. They've collectively deemed that Adobe software is The One Way (tm) to do design. You're not a real designer if you work any other way. Making things worse is that like a pack of suckers, they'd rush out to upgrade the instant the next version was released. Adobe's model of preventing backwards compatibility meant that if you resisted upgrading within a few months you'd find yourself receiving design files you can't open. Flash, for example, went from plenty of options when saving in the Macromedia days to allowing you to save back a single version. Whether or not your files feature new functionality is irrelevant.
So the end result is that you're dragged along on the upgrade cycle whether you like it or not. But the most frustrating bit here is that the vast majority of designers never touch what new functionality Adobe has introduced. But then most of that functionality has very limited utility for most people. And while there have been some valuable updates through the years there have been core issues that have yet to be addressed. One is how the UI amongst the various apps is inconsistent despite Creative Suite now having been around for at least 10 years. One of the more ridiculous issues is how most apps in the package, including Acrobat, lack support for retina display.
Knock Microsoft and Office all you want, but they've always been good about updates, their UI is consistent across all apps, and they supported retina early on. On top of that, you can still work effectively with an old version of Office. And most important of all, they don't have a monopoly on any industry.
Maybe that's freaking good enough.
1) is there ANYONE who wanted Adobe who didn't d/l the full suite of everything plus licenses when they were posted just a few months ago?
2) if adobe wants to limit piracy, a first step would be to stop giving it away, cf#1, above.
FWIW, I personally think that giving away old versions is brilliant.
The WHOLE REASON (in my view) that MS Windows owns the desktop market today (well, until Win8 anyway) was that OS/2 was hard to pirate, and Win95 was easy-peasy. Talk about a loss-leader paying off for 20 years.
I figured Adobe was 'accidentally' giving away old (CS2) versions of everything in the same vein, to 'hook' users on their methods, and it's worked for me...I was using a dubiously-legal version of Vegas (someone's old license they sold me at a flea market) and I'm cheerfully willing to plug away at the Adobe learning curve to switch to something only because I feel it is probably more legit.
-Styopa
I'm okay with the subscription, but at $50/month, that's about 3 times more expensive than I'll be willing to pay for.
Suits and bankers always bring this subscription shit up. You would think Adobe of all companies would have learned from Quark = do not piss of your base. Hope this spurs gimp, pixelmator, cinepaint et al to get their act together.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." ~The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan
The new cloudcrippled photoshop will probably be put on pirate bay too. :-D
I would guess on a yearly "snapshot" of cracked photoshop that user can
install as usual, and that will not stop working.
They will just not have a adobe version number but instead a date as version
like "photoshop-complete-2014-08-23-ChingLiu.torrent" or something
Still no support for 16-bit per channel after all these years.
Isn't that implemented by the Generic Graphics Library (GEGL), partially implemented in GIMP 2.6 with a migration path that should end with GIMP 2.10 (the next version) fully utilizing it? 2.10 has been specifically noted as supporting 16 (and 32!) bits per color channel. That link, from a year ago, even has a screen shot. Still, 2.10 doesn't have a release schedule, and despite that the developers are committed to "shorter development cycles," it looks more like it's still a ways out (2.9, the dev pre-release, is still several months out at the earliest). Still, it's heartening to know they're on the right path (and that they've gotten around the design flaws that preiviously made this kind of feature impossible to implement).
The worst thing about GIMP is that its existence leads the FOSS community into complacency. People need to realize that there really is no good open-source competitor to Photoshop and start working on one, rather than pretending that GIMP fits the bill and then arguing with creative professionals who repeatedly point out why it doesn't.
Again, GEGL comes to the rescue. The whole point of it is to make it a library so it can be used from GIMP or any other utility. It represents that ground-up rewrite you so desperately plea for.
Regarding a professional-grade tool ... Free Software never really offers that. You can get close, and sometimes you get lucky, but for the most part, there is no free ride. Generally, the best you can hope for is a commercial closed-source application that works well in an otherwise Free Software environment. It's icing on the cake when the vendor of such software offers a Free version of it (e.g. Codeweavers and Crossover vs WINE).
There's always "more" work needed, and for high-end items like the Photoshop features missing from GIMP, there's rarely enough community-driven (read: volunteer) time and energy to make it happen. It's worth noting when a major feature is missing, as car mechanics tend not to be racecar drivers (as mentioned elsewhere in the comments), but it's not worth complaining unless you're rolling up your sleeves and/or putting up a bounty to make developers' time easier to allocate.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I actually like the ability to subscribe and unsubscribe to different cloud suite components as I need them. Should lead to overall savings for many small operators. BUT if you read Adobe's FAQ on the subscription service, you need to have your PC check in with Adobe every 30 days to validate your license even if you prepay a year to Adobe. This is a deal killer to me. I frequently travel to the third world and go for sometimes months without the ability (or inclination due to security concerns) to plug my editing laptop into the Internet. It reminds me of the reincarnation of Napster that allowed you pretty much all you could download for a monthly fee. DRM was compatible with Creative ZEN, etc. You just had to sync your MP3 player with Napster once a month. Problem is, I went to India for 5 weeks and had not tunes to listen to on the flight home. I cancelled immediately.
How long will it take for a crack to be build such that everytime you fire up an Adobe App, it gets what it believes to be an OK from the mothership?
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
If CS6, which calls home, can be patched or cracked, then CC, which calls home monthly, can be pirated too. There is a bit or variable somewhere in the version of CC on your local disk that says "paid up". How hard is it going to be to find what changes after a call home, generate the correct bit or data for your system, and apply it like any other crack? If Adobe thinks this will make them more money because no more piracy, BOY are they wrong. Now the pirates can pirate the latest version every day directly from Adobe because they've faked having paid their CC bill. This is much worse than Vista for Microsoft. I would predict mass firings at Adobe when this became apparent, but I have a feeling Chizen is onboard with it. He won't fire himself, just his friends and colleagues who agreed with him it sounded like a good idea. Adobe, take a lesson from TurboTax, who got so badly burned with their DRM they undid it all and offered a public apology.
Pixelmator has enough compatibility with photoshop for my casual use. I seriously hope that they step up and create a competitive version to go head to head with photoshop. Price point for Pixelmator is $29.99 if I recall correctly.
been there, done that, got the T-shirt, burned it, going back home
If Adobe did this to convert pirates to payers, boy did they screw up.
Crackers will just crack the bit that says "paid up this month" instead of cracking activation. Activation is not the only thing that can be cracked!
When this becomes obvious, Adobe will suffer and shrink to a less important company.
Adobe, beware the wages of greed!
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
What's your next Scotsman?
An interface and shortcuts that look as close as possible to Photoshop's.
I was a buying Adobe Creative suite and updating for a while, but their business model is now simply too predatory for my tastes. I'll wait for others now with an incentive to build similar, but much cheaper software. I and I suspect most users don't use more than 20-30% of the functionality in the suite as it is. Why pay to rent something you are not going to use?
The real problem with renting software is essentially that you are locked in. Once you stop paying, your software "goes away". They have zero incentive to let you stay using older versions, so expect once they lock in the market, the window to upgrade before you are shut out will grow shorter, while the price to rent grows larger. You can see this already in their price increases over the past few years. This year it will be $600/yr, the next $700 and so on. Count on it.
Looks as if Adobe is giving other software vendors a real incentive to displace them in all but the high end niche of the market.
Once Adobe stand alone versions become obsolete and hard to find, you can bet that you will be held hostage to pay whatever they ask in perpetuity. Until there is competition there is no reason to suspect that it won't happen.
Aperture is competitive with Adobe's Lightroom, not Photoshop. Neither program supports even basic features like layers
Although it's true that neither programs has something that is explicitly labeled "layer", you are incorrect that Aperture is missing some of what layers provides you.
For instance, I can burn a portion of an image with a brush, adjusting where the in the image the burn is applied along with the level of burn, radius and so on. I can then toggle that on and off, to see the final effect. So how is that not like one very common use of layers?
You can apply multiple color adjustments, shadows adjustments, B&W toning, etc. all within Aperture and all applied to specific regions that you can again enable and disable.
Combine that with Versions of the image, which take up very little extra space as they are basing adjustments on top of one master image - now I can also have custom crops and rotations with all the other settings remaining the same, that I can switch between. It's basically the same effect as smart layers for particular kinds of adjustments.
Again, remember that Aperture (and Lightroom) are very photography specific and there are a ton of uses of layers that graphic designers have that you just don't need or use the same way with photography. As a photographer, 90% of the kinds of adjustments I used to make in Photoshop can easily be done in Aperture (or Lightroom), and in fact more easily because those tools are built for photographers, not graphic designers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is also no guarantee that they won't change the various file formats going forward, so the opportunities for lock in become tremendous as the project goes fully toward the cloud/rental model.
I do worry about corporations such as Adobe, since it would only take a Google to decide to compete with them in the cloud and users could soon find themselves out high and dry in terms of basic file structures and archival issues.
"As to jobs... again, if a workplace needs CS, they'll pay the monthly license (per-seat, probably) as part of their operating cost"
This is the expectation, but in this environment its getting a lot harder to pass off one's costs to customers even if much can be written off the top as a business expense. This model, which will be $600 this year will probably be $1000 in a few more and a lot of companies will start seeking alternatives to keep themselves competitive relative to those that have to pay Adobe for exorbitantly priced software.
For now I'll just keep using my old Adobe products until something better comes a long an replaces it. I'm not buying into the software for rent model. Just way to many hidden and unexpected costs, with very limited control over one's computing environment for users.
without base cmyk support, programmes like (good ol lovable) gimp will never be serious contenders against photoshop for production houses. with this, they're just making and charging for a dozen mandatory micro-upgrades per year instead of one big chunk once a year - for those who need it, they'll probably ante up, cause the tools actually are really good, and designed by good designers, and designers appreciate good tools. - still, im old fashioned.. you pay for software, you own it, and it should keep on working without artificial expiry bombs built-in. oh, and you have a right to backup and copy what you've paid for. - or you *should* - no matter what those lawyer types say. photoshop is to imagery what word is to words, and excel to spreadsheets - its well designed, and subscriptions suck.
Illustrator --- buy FreeHand/MX or buy into Quesado's StageStack http://www.stagestack.com/en_US/ or learn to use Asymptote (has a GUI, xasy), METAPOST (gui METAGRAF), or Inkscape
PhotoShop --- use an old version, switch to doing everything in color-managed RGB, try some other pixel editor
Flash --- code in JavaScript and HTML5
InDesign --- Quark Xpress, Scribus, Apple's Pages.app or learn to use TeX
Makes me wish I'd taken up woodworking instead.
If the industry has any sense they'll boycott.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
What happens after awhile if for some reason, I can't or don't wish to connect said computer to the internet to check in? I just go dark and that's acceptable?
In the case of MS; I believe you pay once a year, and the software is unlocked for a year, and this info about the good-'til date can be seen from within the software.
Nowadays, you need to be updating your software, to get security bugs fixed, and if you are upgrading regularly, then you are already making regular payments. The question will then be... how do your upgrade payments, compare to the subscription payments?
Permanent ownership of the software is worth a little bit, but not an infinite amount.
You can buy Office permanent licenses, and they cost 2.5x to 3x as much as a year's rental.
With the understanding, that otherwise... the software will be obsolete in 2 to 3 years, and the cost of the successive version always seems to be significantly higher than the cost of the current version, the permanent license seems to cost the consumer more in the long run
Although the rental price might go up too, once they get more people sold on the idea, and they no longer have to worry about piracy so much, since "phoning home" is an inherent aspect of the sw.
I assume Gimp + Inkscape will get more popular in near future ...
1. No, you don't need to constantly update your software.. It's just that people've been scared into a rut about doing so. As history has shown, the previous billion patches haven't made it secure, so why do you think the next round will be any better? This affects all software, not just adobe or windows. The answer is to assume it's not secure and operate on that assumption at all times. So, no, don't update if the updates remove needed functionality or create new, unneeded dependencies (always on DRM).
2. A little bit? I'd say it's a lot. Depending on your tools being there the next morning, and with the same capabilities as yesterday, is a fundamental part of getting anything done. I'd say this is as valuable as the tool capabilities themselves. Without the former, the tool is worthless, no matter how amazing the latter is. Always on DRM turns computing from empowering to enslaving. Screw that.
3. No matter how obsolete the software is, it's still better than the latest version tied down with remote kill switches...and I can guarantee you, in an always on DRM world, the ONLY people who will have self sufficient software stacks will be the pirates.
...because of Adobe's clout and other companies reliance on the product. But it's a shitty idea. While it may lower the cost of the software somewhat (or may not) it further removes ownership of said software from you, which is exactly what hey want. It's also exactly what I (and many others I suspect) do not want. I want to pay for software exactly once. I want to then be able to install it on any god damn computer I want, so long as it (the computer) is owned by me or an immediate family member. I don't want it attached to some security scheme that requires an Internet connection, causing it to eventually fail unless the company patches it or release a non-leashed version. Lastly, I want to be able to sell it to someone else when I move on, and have them be able to use it without issue, because not everyone is rich and able to afford the latest version, let alone at all sometimes. Frankly I don't think I am asking too much.
I don't know who Gimp might look attractive to. It's missing two things that are absolute must-haves for me preparing images for high-quality printing (think "exhibition quality", not machine prints).
Specifically, support for 16-bit-per-channel images (as others have said, the final result can be reduced to 8-bit fairly safely; it's while you're working it that it needs the extra space), and support for adjustment layers with layer masks (also up through 16-bit). I will frequently end up with 4 separate curves adjustment layers with layer masks, plus a couple of content layers with unusual blending modes, for even a simple picture; a complex picture, or a restoration job, can easily go to twice that.
Also, there's the issue of integrated raw conversion in the workflow.
Beyond that, for professionals there are usually mandatory plugins, and if the Photoshop plugins don't run in Gimp (I don't know, I haven't checked that) and there isn't an equivalent plugin (there never is), it's hopeless. I need Noise Ninja and Focus Magic and Color Mechanic as my minimum; professionals need more (and usually need some of the high-end masking plugins).
However, the subscription model isn't that bad for professional users. Except for artists -- as usual, they get squeezed, because they tend to need the outer reaches of capabilities, and the vast majority of them have not nearly enough money. It's the serious amateur photographers who get hurt in this.
Wait.... people buy Photoshop??
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
You wont b able to buy cs6 no more, not from Adobe anyway.
Also, you can download distro and than back it up somewhere.(with CS6)
The Gimp is software that I am now happily familiar with, and want to improve my knowledge of.
I buy books to learn more about how to do things I want to do with the Gimp.
My hope is that money will become available to pay Gimp developers to more rapidly produce such wonderful things as the GEKL support and make the Gimp more useful to professionals as well as people like me.
So long and thanks for nothing.
My principle problem (and why I will probably never subscribe) is that I've generated a lot of content over the years (and plan to continue doing so), and have never had my ability to edit/control *my content* compromised by a revokable license. For example, even if I have to run an emulator, I can install and run virtually every Word processor I've ever owned and read/edit every document I've ever generated--even as far back as the old DOS Wordstar days. With the subscription model, all this changes. If subscriptions had been the norm back then, I can't imagine how many subscriptions I'd have to be maintaining today in order to still have the "right" to edit my own content. It is very important to remember that under a subscription model, when you stop paying, not only is your license to *use* the product revoked, but so is your ability to access, use, and edit any proprietarily formatted content you generated in that product.
For example, suppose I subscribe to Word or Excel 20XX and create a year's worth of content (using, say, the latest MS proprietary features), then next year find that I need to move to a different Word processor or spreadsheet for some personal or business reason--under those conditions it is possible that I will become literally locked-out of my ability to edit any documents I generated last year which used proprietary features of Word or Excel unless I continue to keep a subscription to Office active in addition to buying the new word processor. It's worse than ordinary lock-in; because while its one kind of "evil" to be "locked-into" a particular vendor's product because it is proprietary, it is an entirely different matter when the penalty for breaking the vendor lock (by canceling one's subscription) is to become immediately "locked-out" of one's own content. This is the fundamental flaw in the subscription model--and pretty much any other model of software "rental". By Adobe doing this too now with Photoshop and I'm really getting discouraged because right now I am a permanently licensed user of all the software necessary to edit every image I've ever processed; but if I were to ever be forced to "subscribe" to Photoshop, it would be with the understanding that my license to use the software (and thus to edit my work) will be immediately *revoked* the moment I dropped my subscription. Even more risky is that if one of these companies goes away, I could literally loose access to years of content without even the option to resubscribe. I'm sorry, but this is just a liability I can't accept and would generally prefer to use second-tier software (OSS or a lesser vendor) rather than accept this penalty.
I wonder how this will impact the users of the "free" version of Photoshop and other Adobe products. Is this the reason they are doing it? Because if they are, then they are wrong. I mean, imagine a world with 10 thousand Photoshop users vs a world (this world) with millions of users (I don't know the exact numbers). The lack of digital content would be ... bad. Still, I can't really imagine an alternate past where Gimp would be what Photoshop was, mainly because Gimp is the poor man's Photoshop and it heavily inspired by the former.
Think about it. $50 a month is $600 a year. CS6 Master is like $2500. So, to buy it, you would be effectively spending 4 years worth of subscription. while, yes, some people will use CS6 for longer than 4 years, most mainstream power users won't - they will upgrade as new versions come out, etc.
What the article doesn't mention is that there are lower price points, too.
Linux, apache, gcc, etc. are highest quality low-level tech tools. They were created by people who wanted them and knew intimately what was needed and how to make it happen. UNFORTUNATELY, the people who know intimately what is needed in word processing, graphics manipulation, etc. generally do not have the skills required to create such tools. The OSS equivalents are low-level tech interpretations that cannot compete meaningfully with the commercial products that are created by spending lots of time and money bringing together low-level tech people and uber _users_ to spiral develop a useful product.
OSS can only really fully meet the needs of programmers/hackers. For the rest, it is a low quality alternative.
Discuss =)
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
First I was like "Fuck yeah, ~9€/month, wont have to pirate it anymore!", then I was like "50€/month? welp, guess i'm back to pirate it."
I went to Open Office thank whoever there are alternatives to Adobe also
It will happen then it won't.
I guess I'll be bying CS6, and staying with that for awhile.
I don't want to 'rent' software.
I'd heard that Adobe had just recently stopped selling their products on CD/DVD's and only had downloadable. I don't really like that as that I really prefer to keep physical install media, but I can live without if need be.
But, renting software, is unacceptable to me.
What happens after awhile if for some reason, I can't or don't wish to connect said computer to the internet to check in? I just go dark and that's acceptable?
You have to log in once every 30days, to re-activate the adobe software.
This is the Introductory price! Good only until June 25th. The price goes to $30/month after the introductory price (the same as existing CS 3 and above customers). "Reduced price through June 25; normally US$29.99/month" :P
They mention that you will be able to buy a pre-paid cards. Think World of Warcraft. I see them listed on Amazon already, like this one $150 for three months: http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Creative-Membership-Pre-Paid-Product/dp/B007W76ZLW/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1367956834&sr=8-8&keywords=pre-paid+cards
Brand only can change on a dime.
Meanwhile, I can find up-to-date-enough Photoshop for less than a buck from any Shanghai DVD cart. Viruses indubitably included. I'll take the cloud solution.
-- Jimtown Kelly
A careful analysis of cloud leads to one merry conclusion. Thre is only one advantage and it's to the supplier. No matter how you slice it and dice it there are no advantages to the consumer. The cloud is about making money, period. Anyone who tells you different is in the business of selling the cloud. It offers nothing that cannot easily be set up yourself with complete control remaining with you. Furthermore it's back to 100% dependence on suppliers rather than independence which was the point of the personal PC. So Sheeple wake up. You are getting screwed. As for business. We are over Microsucks and co. We are actively planning to change all our systems to Linux. We used the think it would be steep learning curve but now with Office 365, the retarded Metro interface and Adobe we don't think the learning curve is that steep any more and the benefits will be enormous. GIMP is free and more powerful than Adobe. Openoffice is like a breath of fresh air compared to Office. Also free.
As someone who is responsible for purchasing software and maintaining license compliance for my organization, I love the subscription model. Sure you can say it takes away from the experience by never allowing you to "own" the software, but in most businesses you only use it until the next version comes out and everyone wants to upgrade.
But the biggest advantage here, bar none, is that everyone will always have the same version. Previously with Photoshop, we had our creative group which consists of about 10 folks and they always buy the latest version as soon as it comes out, then we have 10 or so random "power users" in the organization that also have photoshop but don't buy the new versions, so then we end up supporting multiple different versions and interoperability is a nightmare.
This causes significant budget challenges because when a new version is announced in May and released in July, and you didn't have any idea it was coming back in November of the previous year when you created your budget, now you have to figure out where to find money to buy it. The subscription model gives you an easily predictable cost, and users can always have the latest version. Additionally, you don't have to deal with folks installing rogue, unlicensed versions of the software so it greatly simplifies compliance.
We made the jump to Office 365 last year and in terms of licensing, you do pay a bit more for the subscription when you compare it to the cost of buying the newest version every 2-3 years, but the cost is steady and easy to predict and that prevents us from having to go and "sell" new versions to management and keeps us from ending up in a position where we're using an out of date version of Office for a few years.
The mistake Adobe is making here is restricting subscriptions with a 1yr minimum term. Microsoft did it right by allowing you to move your license count up or down on a monthly basis. Around this time of the year when my company brings in 10-15 summer interns, this is great. We can scale our license count up and only pay for those licenses when we need them.
Quite a few comments about GIMP's inability to really compete. The problem as I see it is that GIMP has never been as good as Photoshop for me. The #1 feature of Photoshop I use is the combination of vector shape tool and layer effects. I have tried GIMP a few times over the pas 10 years and I just can't get past the lack of that feature. I also hated the window mode but I just saw that was fixed in 2.8.
Regardless of my inexperience with GIMP or the shortcomings it has in my mind, why don't they do a kickstarter? I bet tons of us would chip in. If it could secure a couple full time coders on it, wouldn't that speed up the development quite a bit? Then perhaps a real photoshop competitor could emerge sooner rather than later.
Do you just hit reply to any old random post near the top of the comments or what?
Single-window mode has absolutely nothing at all to do with why the GIMP GUI sucks. Switching to single-window mode is actually worse, not better.
It seems like 80-90% of the complaints regarding GIMP's UI are from people who won't be satisfied with anything but a full Photoshop GUI rip-off (e.g. the way LibreOffice mimics MS Office; Gimphoto and the defunct GIMPshop get close on this front). Their top issue is (well, was) the lack of a single-window mode. To shut them up, given how trivial it was to implement, it was added. I agree with you on the fact that the mode doesn't improve the UX, but it does shut down the #1 complaint, which is something.
What else is (independently) bad about the UI? I started my graphics career on Paint Shop Pro (a plugin-compatible Photoshop knock-off that I actually preferred due to better use of the right mouse button) and was able to seamlessly upgrade to Photoshop given the similar UI. GIMP therefore had a steep learning curve for me, but I have grown to prefer it over time (though I still have to hold back from certain ~hard-wired PSP keyboard shortcuts).
I think the real issue here is merely that GIMP is not a Photoshop clone and image professionals aren't as proficient with computers as professionals of other industries that spend similar amounts of time on computers. They took a very long time (running through tutorials and perhaps paid classes) to learn Photoshop, and there are no equivalents for GIMP (at least, not with the same polish, which these users need), not to mention the fact that it's a serious time (and often monetary) commitment. The only solutions for these uesrs are to make GIMP bi-modal (GIMPshop mode) or to both improve overall computer proficiency (which is happening over time anyway) and create highly polished tutorials and professional courses on GIMP.
Even then, GIMP would still need to absorb (or better partner with) the features currently relegated to the Separate+ and PSPI plugins.
As I've said elsewhere in this article's comments, GIMP is not really professional-grade, it's just close enough for people to make the comparison. LibreOffice has commercial backing, as does the Linux kernel, as does WINE. Perhaps what GIMP "needs" is a commercial backer, that implements new features within a non-free plugin suite (and/or a fork that somehow gets around the GPL) and expands GIMP's base to maintain compatibility, even slowly trickling their commercial features into GIMP over time so as to merely represent what the Free Software version will get in a release or two.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Adobe licensing is very, very different when buying as an institution instead of an individual.
The price he's quoted isn't terribly surprising, actually - we've been told a number that's about half that.