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INFORMAL POLL: Who out there is using Adobe Creative Cloud? What do you think in retrospect?


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<p>I use CC and am happy with it. Believe it or not, I was still on CS2 when I made the switch, so it made a big difference to me. Not sure there's as much difference from CS5. I pay about $10.00 a month (a year at a time), and it keeps me constantly upgraded. That includes Photoshop and Lightroom. The whole suite would be more expensive. I still use my old InDesign and Illustrator CS2 on an older computer I have that still supports those old programs, which I use rarely.</p>
We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>I subscribe to the Creative Cloud after years of buying and upgrading individual products, then collections. The Creative Cloud gives me access to the entire collection, not just the half dozen I purchased, with timely updates, at less cost than I incurred in previous years for periodic updates. While I have a certain sense of loss (of control) in the process, it makes good business sense to manage my cash flow, as it does, I'm sure, for Adobe as well.</p>
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<p>For 10 dollars a month, I get the latest, most current updates of photoshop (I don't use lightroom, but its available at no extra cost). I spend way more than that just feeding the birds in the back yard! The new versions of ACR are amazing. I am going back and re-processing shots I did ten years ago and getting much more shadow and highlight detail than I could even five years ago. No comparison to having to purchase expensive upgrades and then install them every year or so.</p>
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<p>Not going to succumb to the "pay for life" subscription model until adobe makes the change that after a reasonable subscription time, one can use the program without an active subscription (without further updates, of course). The $10 per month is not the issue - the fact that one has to pay in perpetuity is.</p>
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<p>The problem I kept running into with the pre-subscription model was that my version of ACR would become outdated for each new camera, thus necessitating a PS upgrade at fairly substantial cost. When I was using CS4 I waited too long and to upgrade to CS6 I would have had to pay full price, like $600 or something like that. Ten dollars a month to stay current with modern cameras is cheap. That's tip money going out to dinner, a few cups of coffee at work, etc.</p>
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<p>Well said Mr. Schaefer,</p>

<p>“Not going to succumb to the "pay for life" subscription model… The $10 per month is not the issue - the fact that one has to pay in perpetuity is.” </p>

<p>I will not do it on principle. A whole generation had grown up with captured forever contracts, starting with cell phones. They have been tricked into economic slavery. Many accept this as normal. </p>

<p>I’ll do without rather than be just another sucker. </p>

<p>A. T. Burke</p>

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<p>The problem is that cameras are always being upgraded as well as their software demands. As I said above, then you have to upgrade your image handling software if you shoot RAW format, which ends up being much more costly than the simple subscription cost. BTW, MS Office is now subscription based too!</p>
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<p>For me, the problem has more to do with the vulnerability of anything based on the cloud. It's the main reason I chose to upgrade to CS6 from CS5, a process that is a little more confusing now that you can no longer download the software from the Adobe site.</p>

<p>The problem of older Photoshop software not supporting newer cameras is easily solved. I ran into this with my then-new Canon EOS Mk. II and CS3, several years ago. The solution is to download the Adobe DNG software, which converts incompatible RAW files to DNG format. ACR can then process those files just like compatible RAW files. (But, I'd keep a copy of the original RAW files stored somewhere, just in case.)</p>

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<p>CC has allowed me access to software for which could never justify to pay the expensive single version license, for each software that I might occasionally need. The software I normally use is Photoshop and Lightroom, but I occasionally need Acrobat, Illustrator, and Premiere, and I appreciate the option of testing Adobe's web prototyping software etc. The subscription makes it less expensive to access occasionally needed software, and means the software is kept up to date without additional costs apart from the subscription. The model works for me. I would wish however that Adobe would do more testing before release and start making raw converters that allow access to all the EXIF data and utilize it effectively.</p>

<p>William, the software and image files are not actually in the cloud, the software is installed on your computer as before, and the data is on your computer. I am not sure what the vulnerability is. The "Cloud" part does exist but I am not aware of anyone who is using it.</p>

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<p>I stopped using "full" photoshop at a point, as I found the cost for my modest needs a bit too much, and I wasn't using ACR at the time anyway. So as my scanner came with Photoshop Elements 9, I stuck with that and it still works perfectly fine for the little bits I do with it, most of the time.<br>

It's actually the €12,50 monthly option that had me considering to move to Photoshop CC and get the real deal; for some (minor) things I do miss that Elements cannot work in 16-bits and has a rather clumsy curves implementation. But I found another editor for the cost of 2 months of Adobe subscription...(I'd love Affinity that Phil mentioned, but it's Mac-only). And I already use a Lightroom competitor that I vastly prefer, so for me it's not very cost effective.<br>

Overall, I think the photography bundle is really quite good value; if you already use either Lightroom or Photoshop, it is a decent price to stay up to date. That said, if you mainly use Photoshop but not ACR, the incentive to upgrade will be a whole lot less indeed. If I owned CS5 or CS6, I'd wait for that killer feature, which so far I do not see.</p>

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<p>I'm on the $10 a month subscription. It's cheaper for me than staying up to date with the old way. So no complaints here. I still own the old versions, so if I decide to I can always revert back, though I'm sure with some pain for LR like rebuilding the catalog from the sidecar files.</p>

<p>The fact that I end up buying a new camera every few years pretty much necessitates keeping the software updated one way or another. Being in the software industry myself also means I don't have an issue paying for the programs. So I don't really find much to object to.</p>

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<p>I've subscribed since they began the subscription program with Adobe Muse. As others have said, you get access to the whole suite of applications, one of which is Dreamweaver I've used for 10 years. I also still have some pre-CC (CS5, 5.5 and 6) versions of applications which still work on OS-X 10.11, including GoLive 9 of all things.</p>

<p>My only issue with Adobe is two-fold. One, the CC manager app doesn't always work right and won't log into Adobe when you start up. The solution is delete the desktop and restart everytrhing. And two, you have to be careful installing new complete versions as the install package deletes all old CC version, but Time Machine is great to bring them back and they don't interfer with the latest versions to run similtaneously, one feature Adobe has always had with their apps.</p>

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<p>Still on CS6 Design Standard (PS/Illustrator/InDesign/Acrobat Pro). We used to install the current version of CS routinely on new PCs at work, but the only way we can now get this selection of packages is a full CC subscription (including lots of stuff we don't need). The annual pricing Adobe offers our institution is about the same as the old CS Design Standard perpetual licence pricing, so for us CC would be a terrible deal in comparison. This is not core sofware for us, so the subscription isn't really justifiable, at least not on all machines. If the Serif Affinity packages were available for PC (as they may be in the future) we'd probably just use those.</p>
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<p>I still use CS5 with Nik and Topaz plug-ins, as well as Aperture and Lightroom 5, on an old Mac Pro 1,1, which runs on OS 10.7.5, the most up to date OS possible on the Mac Pro. So far, this is all that I have needed for editing. However, buying a new camera will necessitate buying a new computer to support new software to support the new camera. Sooner or later I will be forced to make the plunge, but not this year, or probably, next.</p>

<p>I looked into Affinity, which does run on OS 10.7.5, but, does not seem to support using plug-ins (please correct me if you know differently).</p>

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<p>A thread from earlier this years suggests PS plugin support is still in development (i.e., some work, but not all):<br /> http://affinity.serif.com/forum/index.php?/topic/9768-using-photoshop-plugins/<br /> Things may or may not have improved since then.<br>

Edit: Since when did photo.net start doing sleazy link skimming? Clicking my own link from here (above) takes me to the site via redirectingat.com (I have Web of trust installed, which warns me about the dubious intermediary).</p>

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