'free' Creative cloud for PS5 users?

<p>Just fired up PS5 extended and up comes a pop up from Adobe to remind me that I can have a 'free' upgrade to Creative Cloud, sounds good but....<br /> when you go to the link you will still be charged about £9 odd per month for the 'free' upgrade!<br /> I am willing to admit that my arithmetic was never very strong but come on Adobe it's not as bad as that!</p>

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<p>The "rent" for Adobe Creative Cloud is less than the cost of sesquiannual updates. PS CC is definitely an upgrade from PS 5. PS is no longer sold as a stand-alone product.</p>

<p>Edward I do understand that PS5 (and PS6) are no longer sold as stand alone products. Adobe have a bit of a cheek trying to con people into CC in such an obvious way.</p>

 

<p>You will be charged for maintenance, not the upgrade, to PS 6.5. With it comes Lightroom, which would otherwise cost you $180 or so from PS 5.</p>

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<p>Lightroom, which would otherwise cost you $180</p>

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Lightroom 6 cost $149 from Adobe and $143 from Adorama/B&H. Not $180.</p>

<p>Alright, a stand-alone update costs $149. It's not free. Wasn't that the point?</p>

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<p>stand-alone update costs $149.</p>

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It's not an update.</p>

USD 149 is for a full version, upgrade is around $ 79.

<p>The point is, it's not free. The OP can buy it outright or pay $10/month for both Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC. If you want something for free, download GIMP.</p>

<p>Adobe has lowered the price while eliminating discounts for updates. LR is one of the few programs still available on an individual basis. If a new version is released (7?) and you want or need it, you will pay the full price again.</p>

<p>Why are you biting my ankles over trivia? $150, $143, who cares? I think the stand-alone version I bought was $299, with major updates about $100.Photoshop was more, but that's a moot issue. I've been on CC so long, my old receipts are buried in tax records. I use half a dozen applications daily, and about the same number on occasions. The full CC version is a bargain for me, and spreads out the cash flow rather than paying all at once.</p>

 

<p>The LR/PS CC offer is a good deal, no doubt. But it is rent, without quotes. It's not some maintenance fee; if it was a maintenance fee the software would continue to work once you stop paying, and this is certainly not the case. If you feel that's not biting ankles over trivia, it isn't; you're giving a pretty wrong impression of what Adobe is charging you for. <br />That doesn't make it a worse deal, obviously. But stop paying, and the software looses full functionality.</p>

<p>LR stand-alone can be a better deal if you don't feel the need to update frequently, and do not use Photoshop - and for some people, that will apply. To each to do their own calculations what is cheaper over a 2-3 year span.</p>

<p>To be specific and accurate: if you stop paying your subscription (which for some reason, people seem to like to call <em>rent</em>), LR will continue to operate in all modules expect Develop and Maps. Adobe could hold your DAM (Library) hostage but they do not. The superb Print module will continue to allow you to print. <br /> Further, no one here has ever <em>owned</em> Photoshop, LR or any Adobe product among others. They owned a license to use the product. <br /> I own a license to Photoshop and every version dating back to 1.0.7 back in 1990. Fact is, most of those versions I cannot run on the hardware I use today. So much for '<em>owning</em>' a license to even Photoshop CS3!</p>

<p>Correct, it is "rent" not maintenance. However updates are frequent and automatic. In that sense it is maintenance. (If you stop maintaining your vehicle, it will eventually quit, whether you buy or lease.) You can add or delete programs from your computer, depending on your needs and/or to save space. I suspect that software "leasing" or cloud operation will become the dominant business model in the near future, especially as tablets get smarter and desktop computers head toward extinction.</p>

<p>Creative Cloud programs are downloaded to your computer. Up to two computers can be used, provided you don't use them simultaneously (an honor system). You must remain connected to the internet and signed into Adobe CC. If you stop paying, or are disconnected from the internet, your programs will be disabled after two or three weeks. They are not erased, so you can recover by signing in again.</p>

<p>You start getting warnings like "Your trial period is about to expire" if you are inadvertently disconnected or logged out. Who knows why Adobe doesn't tell you outright what the problem is? On the other hand, have you ever known an error message to actually describe the error in human readable language?</p>

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<p>Up to two computers can be used, provided you don't use them simultaneously (an honor system).</p>

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<p>I believe you can use two at a time and no more (at least that's how it <em>used</em> to work). So you can have one activation on a laptop, one on a desktop. And unlike the perpetual versions, one can be a Mac, one can be a Windows! In theory, you can install on dozens of computers. You need to activate and deactivate such that only two are activated per license. As Edward points out, you have to be connected to the web to do this activation but thereafter, you can be '<em>off</em>' for up to 90 days depending on who you ask. </p>

<p>https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshop-installation-on-multiple-computers-laptop-desktop <br>

<em>Technically, you can install on as many systems (Mac and Win) as you like. I have 5 systems at any given time between home, work/testing machines. However, you can <strong>sign-in and activate</strong> CC on two of those systems at a time.</em><br>

Straight from the<em> horses </em>mouth (Sorry Jeffery), a senior Photoshop engineer. </p>

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<p>I suspect that software "leasing" or cloud operation will become the dominant business model in the near future, especially as tablets get smarter and desktop computers head toward extinction.</p>

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<p>I suspect that companies assuming this may be in for a rude awakening, since not offering perpetual licences creates an obvious niche for competing products that do - I see that Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer are now coming to Windows: http://goo.gl/ROJGOR</p>

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<p>I suspect that companies assuming this may be in for a rude awakening, since not offering perpetual licences creates an obvious niche for competing products that do</p>

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<p>It <em>might</em>. Affinity Photo is a nice product and I purchased it for a mere $50. That doesn't change the facts surrounding both the Adobe CC adoption rate and stock prices since subscription began:<br /><br>

http://prodesigntools.com/creative-cloud-one-million-paid-members.html<br>

<em>Adobe’s <a href="http://www.showcreativecloud.com/">Creative Cloud</a> has been available for over three years now and continues to gain strong adoption in the marketplace, the <a href="http://prodesigntools.com/links/content/dam/Adobe/en/investor-relations/PDFs/71306102/ji83maQk1pI8.pdf">latest published figures</a> show.</em><br>

<em>Lately the rate of paid memberships has approached almost 1 million per quarter – adding 798,000 new subscribers in the past quarter alone (or 57,000 new customers each week) – which means that total number of subscribers has now reached 7 million since the <a href="http://prodesigntools.com/adobe-cc-2015-release-out-free-trials.html">CC product line</a>replaced Creative Suite in June 2013.</em><br>

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<p>Frank, we may be in the minority, but I agree with you: it's funny that "free" costs you 10 bucks a month - or nine pounds in your case.<br>

This is independent of whether a CC subscription is a good deal, a bad deal, extortion, the future of all things to come, ingenious, a failed business model, the finest thing since sliced bread, or whatever.</p>

<p>from the Adobe product licensing agreement ...</p>

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<p>If you own, or are the primary user of, a single-user- or volume-license Adobe product that is installed on a computer at work, you can also install and use the software on one secondary computer of the same platform at home or on a portable computer. However, you may not run the software simultaneously on both the primary and secondary computers.</p>

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<p>https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/end-user-license-agreements-faq.html<br /><br /> <br /> Creative Cloud is the product in this case. All of the applications are derivativ of and inseparable from that product. You need a key to install CC on a computer. That key is good for two computers. Whether they police the simultaneous use restriction is another matter. I believe Adobe will allow cross-platform installations if asked.</p>

You CAN be logged into two computers at a time as Jeffery indicate. Don't know about you, but I can only operate one

computer at a time.

<p>Frank,<br /> Christoph put it clearly, however you should feel grateful because Adobe is being quite generous offering you this "free upgrade"...meaning you will not be penalized because you're using PS5 and you will only pay exactly the same as someone that comes to CC with no previous use of any PS version. :-) :-)</p>

<p>In terms of the '<em>honor</em>' system, keep in mind we're talking about a single user license. Two machines can be logged in at the same time and Photoshop can be running on both at the same time. A user with very long arms could run Photoshop on two machines at the same time. I've run two copies on two machines at the same time when one is processing a big file; move over to 2nd machine and work away. What the <em>honor system</em> is asking you <strong>not</strong> to do is have your assistant working on machine A while you're working on machine B at the same time. It's a single user license and of course, multiuser licenses are available. There's no way Adobe knows if one or two machines is running with one person or two and in fact you can go months without having either machine hooked up to the net to '<em>phone home</em>' to Adobe. </p>

<p>When I first "joined" Adobe Creative Cloud, I was offered a discount because I was current on one or more of the creative suites (Photoshop, InDesign and Premiere Pro). My first year, If I recall, was $30/mo. Adobe recently offered first-time CC users to the same discount, even for users of older versions, like PS5. The offer ended 4/21/16. Perhaps it's parsing words, but that amounts to a "free" upgrade, with a 40% discount to boot.</p>

<p>As a very rough estimate, I use Lightroom for 80% of my image processing, and 20% Photoshop. However I easily spend half my time in Photoshop. It's very powerful, but at a cost.</p>

<p>+1 on the ethics of use, Andrew.</p>