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<p>Keith, if you can get along without ever upgrading your software, no problem. Some of us need to upgrade every so often to keep pace with file formats, raw converter filters, etc. For those who need to upgrade, we're getting screwed.</p>
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<p>They have said they will not upgrade anything outside of the CC platform.</p>

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<p>That isn't what they said! Adobe won't be adding any new features to the CS6 apps and will only release maintenance updates. That will not be indefinitely of course so plan ahead. </p>

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)

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<p>OK, Adobe won't be adding any new features to CS6. Maybe just bug fix or something. It is still a dead ended software if you own it outside of CC. To stay current with new software releases you need to join the monthly fee club.</p>
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<p>OK, Adobe won't be adding any new features to CS6. Maybe just bug fix or something. It is still a dead ended software if you own it outside of CC. To stay current with new software releases you need to join the monthly fee club.</p>

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<p>All I can say is yes, isn't that obvious. It's true of any software product (to stay current, you need to join, buy into, the new version). To say Adobe will not support CS6 which can be your perceptual use product, is just incorrect. </p>

 

 

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Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)

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<p>Photoshop isn't for the amateur or hobbyist. It's for the graphic arts professional who needs printing/prepress and other advanced features, and can "accept no substitutes." Because that market relies on Photoshop for their livelihood, and there's no alternative to it, Adobe can get away with squeezing those users with their full monopoly muscle. Users can yell and scream all they want, but Adobe doesn't care. If those customers want to stay in business, they have to do whatever Adobe tells them.<br /><br />Of course, if an amateur or hobbyist can afford it, Adobe will be happy to take their rent payments. But from Adobe's perspective, it's nothing more than a donation from outside the target market. <br /><br />Amateurs and hobbyists can use Lightroom and/or Elements, which will remain available for purchase. Adobe can't get away with forcing those users to rent software (or to buy every upgrade) because there's competition. If you hate Adobe, you can use Aperture, Paint Shop Pro, or The GIMP. It's the lack of competition for Photoshop in the professional market that gives Adobe the powerful muscles to squeeze those users into a head-lock. <br /><br />I think the MBA-geniuses who are forcing the rental model on captive users know what they're doing. Between the maturity and bulk of Photoshop (which makes adding genuinely compelling improvements to new versions increasingly difficult) and the persistent recession, Adobe faced an uncertain revenue stream. The new model fully exploits monopoly power for the shareholders' benefit. It's simply Good Business. <br /><br />It is possible that it will backfire, or at least not generate the full expected revenue. If Adobe gets too greedy, some professional users might discover that the "hobbyist" alternatives are good enough, even without the full 20 years of bloat that Photoshop has accumulated. Or else Corel might manage to extract its proverbial head from its proverbial fundament and come up with a Photoshop-killing version of Paint Shop Pro. A strategy that involves pissing off a significant number of customers always carries risks. But I think Adobe's MBA-geniuses can feel pretty smug about the enhanced revenue stream. They clearly deserve a big bonus!<br /><br /></p>
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<p>I thought I read that only 15% of Adobe's revenue currently originates from it's subscription services. It is rising but they will have to get to 100% of subscription revenue in the next couple years. That will be a major feat. Any stumbles and the shareholders might not be too tolerant. </p>
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<p>The new distribution model does have some benefits that heavy users of "Photoshop" will find attractive, as well as the noted negatives. Some will like the idea of getting new features incorporated without having to wait and pay for a whole new version as is the case now. You have to think of the monthly over time compared to the pricey stand alone or suite level Adobe products. If you like to upgrade Adobe as it developed the CC model may just be for you. It just depends on your wants and needs I guess. I have CS6 and its optimized for my rMBP. It will last me for a long time so I'm not really interested in constant upgrades and paying for them. I do most of my work in Lightroom with a few plugins and that is working pretty well. </p>
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<p>Some of us need to upgrade every so often to keep pace with file formats, raw converter filters, etc. For those who need to upgrade, we're getting screwed.</p>

 

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<p>You don't <em>need </em>Adobe for <em>any</em> of that though, David - and it's hardly something to criticise Adobe for that they've become the preeminent provider of those "services" and are now trying to capitalise in a new way on that preeminence.</p>

<p>Besides, to the best of <em>anyone's</em> knowledge, Lr will continue to allow us to maintain "currency".</p>

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<p>Mac users don't have the PaintShop Pro alternative. Nor do they have the Picture Window Pro alternative. Both are Windows-only. While I use Parallels, and it works great for Windows apps, forget about color management, or any sort of high-quality printing. I tried, hoping I could keep using Picture Window Pro when I switched to Mac. Not workable, printing was hopeless. So I bought old-stock CS4 and a CS6 upgrade, which made switching to Mac much more expensive.<br>

Only alternatives for Mac users are Gimp and Photoshop Elements. I have Elements 8, I suppose I should get Elements 11 and see how much I would lose.<br>

I definitely use features in Photoshop CS6 that are not in Lightroom, like healing. I'm often working on scans of damaged prints and negatives, and the smart healing stuff is amazing. Need to see how much of that they "let" work in Elements 11.<br>

Sooner or later, a Mac OS update will break Photoshop CS6, and Adobe won't fix it. Sticking with CS6 is not a forever solution, it's a slow walk to the eventual gallows. (For instance Apple could switch to ARM processors -- they've already threatened that to Intel.) So I now have to find an alternative path to CS6. But I won't spend much yet, I suspect that they will get so much backlash that they will do something for amateurs.<br>

What galls me with Adobe's CC approach is that you're trapped for the rest of your life. They should give perpetuals to one release back after (say) a three-year subscription.</p>

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<p>After all that, John, wouldn't you (and other Mac users) now welcome a subscription-based system so that you're not trapped with a PS version that might only be good for a few years? I know plenty that felt let down and stuck with old versions of PS because Apple went Intel, and then drops carbon architecture. Now, as I understand it, many wont be loading LR5 because it only runs on Mountain Lion? Seems "going monthly" might resolve some of this?</p>

<p><strong>"I definitely use features in Photoshop CS6 that are not in Lightroom, like healing."</strong></p>

<p>Layers. The distinguishing feature in Photoshop is the ability to work in layers...and in layers as smart objects :)</p>

<p>I hope the new system allows PS to be dual platform like Lightroom is</p>

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<p>[[it'll be like $10/mnth]]</p>

<p>Where did this number come from?</p>

<p>[[And it should cut down on piracy]]</p>

<p>Adobe has already acknowledged that this will do nothing to reduce piracy.</p>

<p>http://www.dpreview.com/news/2013/05/08/Adobe-photoshop-cc</p>

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<p>While service options that connect to our servers are inherently less prone to piracy, once a user downloads software to their computer the piracy threat is the same as for our perpetual products.</p>

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<p> </p>

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I am from the "I buy it, I own it" school. So cloud application rental is not a business model I want to participate in. More to the point is that I tend to use products that reliably meet my needs- and then I stay with those products for a long time. I frequently skip several generations of upgrades because what I have continues to work well. I use CS2 and LR3.5. I am happy with both. The capbabilities of both exceed my needs at this time. I probably use less than 40% of the capablities of CS2 for example.... Now why should I subscribe to a hamster wheel of upgrades when what I have works perfectly well ? I suspect there are more people like me than Adobe is aware of.
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When you can upgrade at 199 every 18 months, that's roughly 10 a month and no obligation to purchase forever to access your files.

 

The subscription is nearly twice the price with the requirement for a lifetime commitment.

 

In my mind, that's MUCH more expensive!

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<p>Am I correct when looking at the Adobe site, that if you want just one app, its $20 USD a month? If that app is the photoshop equivalent is not a bad deal. Am I not reading it correctly?</p>

 

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<p>No, that's right, Barry - and speaking as (for all I know) a "typical" enthusiast photographer who doesn't use Photoshop every day of every month, I'm harbouring the hope that the pricing will extend to a <em>per day</em> or perhaps <em>per weekend</em> model at similar rate: nobody will win the argument then that CC isn't potentially an excellent option for many of us, and I see no reason whatsoever why this wouldn't be doable.</p>

<p>Imagine that: access to the absolutely current version of Photoshop whenever you need it, for a couple of dollars (or for me, a couple of quid) a time...</p>

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<p>When you can upgrade at 199 every 18 months</p>

 

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<p>But it hasn't always been that cheap to upgrade, has it? Isn't it the case that only in the most recent upgrade round Adobe has made a Photoshop upgrade that low-cost?</p>

<p>It's certainly true that Lightroom's pricing model has only relatively recently priced it so aggressively in comparison to competitors.</p>

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<p>Jonathan Zaremski:<br /> When you can upgrade at 199 every 18 months</p>

<p>Keith Reeder's reply:<br /> But it hasn't always been that cheap to upgrade, has it? Isn't it the case that only in the most recent upgrade round Adobe has made a Photoshop upgrade that low-cost?</p>

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<p>Upgrades have been in the $150-$200 range <strong>at least</strong> since Photoshop 7 (released in 2002). For example, <a href="http://graphicssoft.about.com/b/2005/04/04/photoshop-cs2-info-central.htm">the CS2 upgrade was $149</a> and the <a href="http://photoshopuser.com/cs5/cs5-faq/">CS5 upgrade was $199</a>, and new versions have been <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop_version_history">released every 18-24 months</a>.</p>

<p>It has also been possible to upgrade across multiple versions. For example, CS5 <a href="http://photoshopuser.com/cs5/cs5-faq/">allowed upgrades from as far back as CS2</a>. The $10 per month figure that some people are suggesting might be reasonable would be approximately the equivalent of purchasing every upgrade. The upgrade costs of anyone who regularly skipped versions would have averaged significantly less than that. Either way, the new cloud pricing is a big price increase, quite apart from the problem of losing access to the software if you ever stop paying.</p>

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<p>I will stay with CS2 and CS6 but I am concerned that the development of new plugins will wane as developers of this type of software may not find it financially advantageous to keep up with continuous upgrades to a cloud based Photoshop program. Just out of instinct in the last couple years, I have been purchasing standalone utilities like Photomatrix Pro, Panorama Maker Pro, Helicon Focus, DXO Viewpoint, plus others which all work as standalone programs and I possess a physical CD. Yes, most of this can be done in Photoshop, but since I don't know how long Adobe will support PS6, I've got most of the bases covered with CS2 and CS6. </p>
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<p>I will stay with CS2 and CS6 but I am concerned that the development of new plugins will wane as developers of this type of software may not find it financially advantageous to keep up with continuous upgrades to a cloud based Photoshop program.</p>

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<p>As a plug-in developer, I can tell you that shouldn’t be a major issue for us. We've only had to make minor changes to mainly Installers and in our case due to Adobe moving away from placing Automate plug-in's which are few, into the Plug-In folder itself. We are also informed well in advance of such changes. We saw a tiny difference in CC whereby our installer searches for all copies of Photoshop on your drive so we know where you want our product, I believe only due to the new name change. Very easy to fix. </p>

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management" (pluralsight.com)

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<p>Upgrades have been in the $150-$200 range at least since Photoshop 7 (released in 2002).</p>

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<p>Not here in the UK! CS4 to CS5 cost me the equivalent of nearly $400, and yes, that was to <em>upgrade</em>.</p>

<p>And as of right now: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Adobe-Photoshop-Extended-Upgrade-Version/dp/B003DZ0DYM - that's <strong>$511</strong> at today's exchange rate.</p>

<p>For a CS4 - CS5 upgrade.</p>

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<p>Keith, the problem with looking at the current price of long-discontinued products, such as the CS5 upgrade, is that they are often quite inflated. But you are quite right to point out how much more Adobe's UK customers pay than their US customers.</p>

<p>Incidentally, Adobe's cloud pricing is also more expensive in the UK. Photoshop CC costs <a href="http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop/buying-guide.html">£17.58 per month in the UK</a>, which is around $27, versus <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/buying-guide.html">$19.99 in the US</a>. This is approximately the same percentage difference in price as <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/uk-users-pay-a-premium-for-adobe-cs5-3040088600/">in 2010 when CS5 was the current version</a>.</p>

 

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