Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Chris Pollock on May 13, 2012, 01:06:52 am
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Like most Australians, I'm absolutely furious about Adobe's pricing policies. In the US an upgrade to Photoshop CS6 can be bought for $199, but in Australia we're expected to pay $337. At the time of writing, the Australian and US dollars are near parity, and the Australian dollar was worth a bit more when the prices were announced.
Of course, it's not just Australians that are getting ripped off. I see that the British are expected to pay £190.80, (about 307 USD) and the Japanese 26,250 yen (about 328 USD). These prices are for digital downloads, so there's no physical product to be delivered, and therefore virtually no delivery cost. The consumption tax in Australia is only 10% (and it wouldn't even be payable if they let us buy from the US site) so that is not a valid excuse. Adobe are ripping off their foreign customers, and that's all there is to it.
Adobe don't even make any attempt to hide the fact that they're ripping us off. If anything, they seem to enjoy rubbing our noses in it. When I typed "Photoshop CS6 upgrade" into Adobe's Australian web page, it redirected me to a page that showed the American upgrade prices. When I tried to buy a copy, however, it wouldn't let me because I lived in the wrong country. Basically Adobe are sticking up their middle finger and saying "We're ripping you off, and you know we're ripping you off, but there's nothing you can do about it because we're a monopoly, ha ha!"
I can understand that Adobe charge their foreign customers more because by raising prices they make more money, and they think they don't have to worry about losing customers because Photoshop (and much of their other software) has no real competition. What I don't understand is why they don't just raise their American prices to the same extent. Why is it that they think they can get away with ripping off British, Japanese, or Australians, but don't do the same thing to their fellow Americans? What's wrong with a single, global price? Everyone who buys Adobe's software gets exactly the same product, and there are no delivery costs, so it's only fair that everyone should pay the same price.
By charging some customers a higher price simply because of the country that they live in, Adobe generate a tremendous amount of ill feeling. Foreign customers may still buy the software because they need it, and there is no competition, but that doesn't mean that they don't hate Adobe, and wouldn't gladly switch to another product if one were available. It's like America buying oil from Saudi Arabia - they hate the Saudi regime (as they should) but they do business with them because they need the oil and can't get it from anyone else.
I haven't decided whether or not I'll upgrade to CS6. I'd like to, and I can afford it, but I think that buying it at the Australian price would be like paying off an extortionist. It just doesn't feel like an ethical thing to do. I think the best course would be for everyone outside the US to boycott Adobe's products, unless they absolutely need them for business purposes.
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Like most Australians, I'm absolutely furious about Adobe's pricing policies. In the US an upgrade to Photoshop CS6 can be bought for $199, but in Australia we're expected to pay $337. At the time of writing, the Australian and US dollars are near parity, and the Australian dollar was worth a bit more when the prices were announced.
Translation costs? ;)
Cheers,
Bernard
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Oh, dear Lord, not again!
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Its not that Adobe hates non-Americans. (although they might, I have no info... but from what I have seen and heard from those I have met who work for Adobe they seem like awfully nice chaps!) ;D
Its simply that Adobe has to pay and support offices in Australia and other foreign countries. The cost of these offices and international staff are passed onto the purchaser (as in any business model). Yes, the digital download costs adobe no more than the US - but the staff in Australia need to be paid and we are a very expensive country in which to employ people.
That said, I believe Adobe (and Apple, who do the same thing) are actually currently under investigation in Australia for their pricing differential. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
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I've been doing some volunteer work designing posters, flyers etc using InDesign for a non-profit organisation. I see online that there is a North American/Canadian non-profit version of InDesign but none for the rest of the world. A bit of consistency from Adobe would be nice, I know the NP would probably buy a subsidised version but there is no way they would buy a full version.
Cheers,
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Hi Chris
I'm in South Africa and, I don't know if it works differently in Oz, but I am able to download direct from the USA site (at their prices). We also have Adobe here but I have always bought through the USA store.
Why don't you try creating a new account using an American address?
William
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Translation costs? ;)
So they're charging us more to have some guy run a script to replace "color" with "colour"? Just sell us the US version; I'm sure that most Australians can read American well enough to get by.
(Yes, I am aware that your post wasn't meant entirely seriously.)
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Its simply that Adobe has to pay and support offices in Australia and other foreign countries. The cost of these offices and international staff are passed onto the purchaser (as in any business model). Yes, the digital download costs adobe no more than the US - but the staff in Australia need to be paid and we are a very expensive country in which to employ people.
In that case, they should close the Australian office. What exactly do they do apart from making the software more expensive?
Do you think that Adobe support staff are employed onshore these days? (I have no idea; I've never had to call support, and have no intention of ever doing so.)
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I'm in South Africa and, I don't know if it works differently in Oz, but I am able to download direct from the USA site (at their prices). We also have Adobe here but I have always bought through the USA store.
Why don't you try creating a new account using an American address?
William
From what I've heard, they block Australian credit cards. I have a Japanese credit card, which may or may not work. My main problem is that I'd have to upgrade from CS5, which is linked to my Australian account. Even if I managed to buy the American version somehow, there's no guarantee that it would work for me.
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Oh, dear Lord, not again!
Your point being?
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Your point being?
His point being, I'm sure, that this is familiar territory: we get here in a cyclical manner every few months.
That doesn't make it any less frustrating though; you guys talk about the cost of upgrades - imagine starting from scratch again, as I would be doing from my modest Model 6! Like any product, you have to make it attractive to generate good will and a feeling of love towards the company that makes it. I look at PS and the music business and feel little surprise at the feelings both generate: rather than affection I feel the pain of a sharp knife applied to the parts that should be working from a sense of love. Love music and love photography - both would love to crucify me for my interest. Seems fair.
Rob C
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Actually, Chris, there are a number of local support staff, marketing staff, distribution and other roles. It might not be something you intend to do, but bear in mind that Adobe is far more than just Photoshop. There are a lot of businesses in Australia who interact with Adobe very frequently and make use of that local presence. People like Michael Stoddard are great people who are super helpful and it's important to have that sort of presence locally to support those who use the products.
I mean, couldn't we just get fashion shots from overseas to use locally? Couldn't we get magazines edited overseas, just over the 'net? We don't need any local photogs, mag editors, printers, etc etc, right? Of course we do - there's tangible benefits to having local experience, input, support, direction and contact - even if you don't see it directly every day of the week.
I understand the desire for a better deal on pricing - me too - I'm not convinced that doing business in Australia is 70% more expensive, but it definitely is more expensive. A thoughtful, polite, considered campaign of communication with Adobe Australia and Adobe US would be a far more worthwhile pursuit than accusing them of hatred and of ripping off customers. Some of it is probably historical, pricing which seemed more reasonable then there was a 30% premium on the greenback over the Aussie and when physical product was more common than digital downloads.
Over time, they would have reached certain revenue expectations and they don't change locally even when there's a change in the exchange rates. That's going to have a lot to do with the local pricing, combined with the higher cost of doing business (even advertising here, offering warranty and general support, is more expensive).
So, less rant and more productive, considered and thoughtful approaching of the company would be my suggestion.
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So, less rant and more productive, considered and thoughtful approaching of the company would be my suggestion.
In real words, just shut up and don't make waves?
Rob C
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Its not that Adobe hates non-Americans. (although they might, I have no info... but from what I have seen and heard from those I have met who work for Adobe they seem like awfully nice chaps!) ;D
I have nothing against Adobe's support people or engineers. (It is the buggiest program that I've used in years, but that's another gripe.) I'm sure that a lot of them are nice people - the same was probably true of Enron for that matter.
The decision to gouge foreign customers was probably made by the faceless men in senior management, who are hated and feared even by their own employees. ;)
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If I ever find my self in such a state of mind that I would entertain the thought that Adobe, as a company, is made up of American (or any other nationality) hating people, and that the employees probably hate and fear the faceless men in senior management, I would definitely uninstall all Adobe products and destroy any program discs. ;)
We also have to pay much more here in Germany than in other parts of the world...and that is not including taxes.
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Actually, Chris, there are a number of local support staff, marketing staff, distribution and other roles. It might not be something you intend to do, but bear in mind that Adobe is far more than just Photoshop. There are a lot of businesses in Australia who interact with Adobe very frequently and make use of that local presence. People like Michael Stoddard are great people who are super helpful and it's important to have that sort of presence locally to support those who use the products.
Maybe they're important to you, but I have no use for them. Perhaps we can compromise here. How about allowing people anywhere in the world to buy the US versions of Adobe's software, on the understanding that any support issues will be handled by the US office? People who value a local office can pay more for a local license, which entitles them to use local support.
I understand the desire for a better deal on pricing - me too - I'm not convinced that doing business in Australia is 70% more expensive, but it definitely is more expensive. A thoughtful, polite, considered campaign of communication with Adobe Australia and Adobe US would be a far more worthwhile pursuit than accusing them of hatred and of ripping off customers.
Maybe I should just get down on my hands and knees and beg Adobe to cut their prices?
So, less rant and more productive, considered and thoughtful approaching of the company would be my suggestion.
No, the best way to deal with Adobe is to boycott their products until they drop their prices. If enough people outside the US do that, Adobe will be forced to become a US-only company, or stop ripping off foreign customers. Which do you think they would choose?
I think you've just saved me $337. There's no way that I could bear to look at myself in the mirror if I bought another Adobe product now. I'll make do with CS5 until some kind of future compatibility issue renders it unusable, by which time open source software will hopefully be good enough. I wonder if the GIMP project could use any help?
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...and that the employees probably hate and fear the faceless men in senior management, I would definitely uninstall all Adobe products and destroy any program discs. ;)
Don't the employees of most companies hate and fear senior management?;)
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No, Rob. Make waves, by contacting Adobe directly.
Chris - as you please. One thing's for sure - ranting here isn't going to fix it. Sure, you can "boycott" their products (will you uninstall all of them, will you refuse to update Flash Player and DNG or any of the other free tools, or is it just a partial boycott?) but unless you take the time to communicate with them directly, they won't know why you decided not to upgrade your product.
Why is it people take the time to rant and reply and such on a place like this, but can't pen a simple email to the company in question? Or, you know, you could telephone one of those Adobe Australia people and talk to them about it.
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Chris - as you please. One thing's for sure - ranting here isn't going to fix it. Sure, you can "boycott" their products (will you uninstall all of them, will you refuse to update Flash Player and DNG or any of the other free tools, or is it just a partial boycott?) but unless you take the time to communicate with them directly, they won't know why you decided not to upgrade your product.
I've already paid for Photoshop CS5, so I'll keep using it. Adobe already have my money, so why would they care if I stopped using it? I have, however, already uninstalled my trial version of CS6.
I fail to see how refusing to update the Flash player would hurt Adobe's bottom line. As you say, it is free. If I had my own website I would try to avoid using Flash, but fortunately I don't.
Why is it people take the time to rant and reply and such on a place like this, but can't pen a simple email to the company in question? Or, you know, you could telephone one of those Adobe Australia people and talk to them about it.
Do you really think that would do any good? The internet is full of people venting their fury at Adobe for their pricing policies, so I'm sure that Adobe's management are aware of how their non-US customers
feel. They've made the decision that they'll make more money through higher prices than they'll lose through lost sales, and making money is what a company is for. They will not drop their prices because a few people ask politely, they will only drop them if enough people refuse to pay the high prices. Anyone outside America who boycotts Adobe's products is helping their fellow citizens - every lost sale puts pressure on Adobe to drop their prices.
Having said that, I did seriosuly consider calling Adobe's Australian office, but decided against it because it would merely antagonize some low-level employee who has no more say in Adobe's pricing policies than I do. The Adobe employee wouldn't be free to speak honestly (no doubt they're told what they have to say) and would have to give me a bunch of excuses that neither of us would believe. I dislike confrontation when there's no chance of it doing any good.
Similarly, any email that I sent would either be ignored, or given a form reply by someone too low in the heirarchy to have any influence.
Just out of interest, did you take your own advice and call Adobe yourself? If so, what did they say? I'm honestly curious to know what their response was. I'm guessing that they didn't offer you a special discount because you asked nicely.
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To be fair, it isn't easy to contact any company where it matters. There's an entire firewall system designed to keep you out! I can't think of which one at the moment, but I do remember trying to complain about something to someone and it was impossible to find an address. I'm not talking about an individual's website, I mean a multi-national.
Even when you can contact people, you can't be certain they will address your question or problem. Years ago, I wrote to Nikon in Japan asking about a grid screen with split-image focussing for my F3 or F4s, knowing from their leaflets that such a screen existed for slow lenses. The point was, why couldn't I buy one for my fast lenses?
After a long time, I received a reply telling me that such a screen was available for slow lenses...
No wonder people scream silently into the night and hatred against big companies becomes a very real thing.
Rob C
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I do not know about Adobe hating non-Americans, but I understand why Americans might hate Aussies: you come here with that cutesy accent of yours and steel their best jobs in Hollywood ;)
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Like most Australians, I'm absolutely furious about Adobe's pricing policies. In the US an upgrade to Photoshop CS6 can be bought for $199, but in Australia we're expected to pay $337. At the time of writing, the Australian and US dollars are near parity, and the Australian dollar was worth a bit more when the prices were announced.
Of course, it's not just Australians that are getting ripped off. I see that the British are expected to pay £190.80, (about 307 USD) and the Japanese 26,250 yen (about 328 USD). These prices are for digital downloads, so there's no physical product to be delivered, and therefore virtually no delivery cost. The consumption tax in Australia is only 10% (and it wouldn't even be payable if they let us buy from the US site) so that is not a valid excuse. Adobe are ripping off their foreign customers, and that's all there is to it.
Adobe don't even make any attempt to hide the fact that they're ripping us off. If anything, they seem to enjoy rubbing our noses in it. When I typed "Photoshop CS6 upgrade" into Adobe's Australian web page, it redirected me to a page that showed the American upgrade prices. When I tried to buy a copy, however, it wouldn't let me because I lived in the wrong country. Basically Adobe are sticking up their middle finger and saying "We're ripping you off, and you know we're ripping you off, but there's nothing you can do about it because we're a monopoly, ha ha!"
I can understand that Adobe charge their foreign customers more because by raising prices they make more money, and they think they don't have to worry about losing customers because Photoshop (and much of their other software) has no real competition. What I don't understand is why they don't just raise their American prices to the same extent. Why is it that they think they can get away with ripping off British, Japanese, or Australians, but don't do the same thing to their fellow Americans? What's wrong with a single, global price? Everyone who buys Adobe's software gets exactly the same product, and there are no delivery costs, so it's only fair that everyone should pay the same price.
By charging some customers a higher price simply because of the country that they live in, Adobe generate a tremendous amount of ill feeling. Foreign customers may still buy the software because they need it, and there is no competition, but that doesn't mean that they don't hate Adobe, and wouldn't gladly switch to another product if one were available. It's like America buying oil from Saudi Arabia - they hate the Saudi regime (as they should) but they do business with them because they need the oil and can't get it from anyone else.
I haven't decided whether or not I'll upgrade to CS6. I'd like to, and I can afford it, but I think that buying it at the Australian price would be like paying off an extortionist. It just doesn't feel like an ethical thing to do. I think the best course would be for everyone outside the US to boycott Adobe's products, unless they absolutely need them for business purposes.
If the OP is interesting in pushing the issue above, a well written letter to federal authorities as well as consumer protection groups with access to TV and news media in AU might help. I’ve seen some cases where a vendor will back off from this kind of gouging, as a result of comments from the public or government sources.
As an aside, Adobe offers phenomenal discounts for a number of sources, such as educational, governmental, and charitable non-profits as well. This is done largely to encourage people to buy. As an aside, if any of the readers is a member of one of the groups above, or knows of a group that is non-profit, run, don’t walk, to a resource called TechSoup.org as they have some of the best prices to be found on a wide variety of both HW and SW.
Anywho, if not just Joe or Jane citizen but also news media and federal officials start making note of price gouging in a public way about retail or upgrade pricing offered by Adobe, often times the vendor will either make a special offer to the complaining party, or make a bigger show of it and offer a promotion to bury the complaints. But again, it takes a well written letter - or two or three, sent to several people inside and outside of the company, along with the willingness to be patient, to achieve this kind of goal.
In the end, vendors such as Adobe want consumers to quietly go along. It is when consumers protest and it start to making the news that changes come.
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Your point being?
My point being that this has been discussed ad nauseam every upgrade cycle and sporadically in-between.
And time and again, some kind and patient people would try to explain, in vain, how gravity works, and time and again bitchers and moaners would continue complaining why they can't reach the sky when they jump up.
I understand that you guys are "down under," but I didn't know that everything else there is upside down!? You guys stop education at the fifth-grade level? No one teaches Econ 101 there? I mean, even if everything is down under, upside down, inside out, reverse and opposite, 101 remains 101 even if you read it backwards, no? No one teaches basic economic laws? Or you were too busy surfing? You know, laws like demand and supply, if nothing else? Let alone the rest of the stuff, like income elasticity of demand, market size, group purchasing power, various fiscal and monetary systems, market segmentation and price discrimination, etc... Oh, and don't get me started on cherry picking: why is it that you people complain only about things that are cheaper here, never about stuff that is more expensive (health care, education, retirement, etc.)
No one mentioned that companies exist to maximize profit? And as much as we would want them to work for the world peace and universal love, that is not how the world works. I understand bitching and moaning about "evil corporations" and "greedy management", or any other combination of those four words. I understand. That is why we have hearts. But we also have another organ, though rarely used, a.k.a. brain, to tell us it has to be that way, up to a point. It has become equally boring paraphrasing Churchill: capitalism is the worst of systems, except for all the others.
There is one intelligent statement in you diatribe though: it is true that the only way to influence pricing policies is to vote with your wallets. Boycotts work. Especially combined with PR campaigns. So stop buying Adobe products. Companies will charge, and rightly so, as much as they can get away. Well, do not let them get away with it... stop buying. That is called demand, and companies understand changes in demand. But looks like you guys were quite ready to fork out whatever the price has been all this time. In other words, Adobe knows there is sufficient demand at that price in your market. Why would they change it then?
So, stop buying. Contrary to the popular belief, there is a competition and it is actually free: Gimp. Not at the same level, I hear you say, mate? Well, gee... let me see: you want the best product the humanity has come up with, but you do not want to pay the premium? Or, you do want to pay it, but the same premium for the market of 20+ millions as for the market of 300+ millions? It sucks, bro! Oopps, scratch that, let me rephrase: it sucks, mate!
As for charging Americans more, believe me, Adobe would if they could. They actually just did, effectively, by reducing upgrade cycle from the last three generations to the last one.
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Pixelmator for the win... $50AUD if I remember correctly. Has enough layer-type stuff so that I can do the occasional composite or painting work.
I won't buy any Adobe products, mainly due to the pricing differential. I have also all but eliminated usage of Flash on my machine. And no, I don't think cost-base differentials between the Australian market and U.S. adequately explains the pricing delta.
Without completely diving down the rabbit hole of the old "Tyranny of Distance" debate, Apple and Nikon (my two big spend vendors) have both been slowly adjusting pricing of their hardware products in-line with the U.S. They aren't completely there yet, but it has been improving. My upcoming D800 purchase will be the first body I've bought in AU. $3,450AUD is very reasonable given GST compared to U.S. pricing of just under $3,000USD.
Adobe's differential is probably the worst of the current big-ticket lot. If I absolutely had to have CS6 or Photoshop, I have a few avenues to purchase via educational discounts in the U.S., UK and AU. But as it stands right now, they won't be getting any of my money.
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Chris - I've discussed the issue with two senior product managers. They obviously didn't agree to give me a discount or change policy, but they are aware of the issue and have agreed to raise it with the appropriate area/management. My suggestion is that they more cases they know of, the better. I'm a single voice, having more helps to make the point more clearly.
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Could it be that the "true" price is the one one that is charged to oversee customers and US customers get a discounted one?
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Could it be that the "true" price is the one one that is charged to oversee customers and US customers get a discounted one?
Geez! I see that the Rangers debacle is having a terrible effect on the nation's thought process: alernatives are being discovered for the first time!
;-)
Rob C
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Adobe is very nice to NSW teachers. I got the Adobe Master Collection CS5 (19 applications) for approximately Au$100. It is only licensed while you are teaching.
Cheers,
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And time and again, some kind and patient people would try to explain, in vain, how gravity works, and time and again bitchers and moaners would continue complaining why they can't reach the sky when they jump up.
So you think it's an unalterable law of the universe that you should be able to pay a cheap price, and people in the rest of the world should pay a higher price for exactly the same product?
I understand that you guys are "down under," but I didn't know that everything else there is upside down!? You guys stop education at the fifth-grade level? No one teaches Econ 101 there? I mean, even if everything is down under, upside down, inside out, reverse and opposite, 101 remains 101 even if you read it backwards, no? No one teaches basic economic laws? Or you were too busy surfing? You know, laws like demand and supply, if nothing else? Let alone the rest of the stuff, like income elasticity of demand, market size, group purchasing power, various fiscal and monetary systems, market segmentation and price discrimination, etc... Oh, and don't get me started on cherry picking: why is it that you people complain only about things that are cheaper here, never about stuff that is more expensive (health care, education, retirement, etc.)
If you're hoping that your infantile anti-Australian rant is going to provoke me into making anti-American remarks in response, I'm afraid I have to dissappoint you. I've known a lot of Americans over the years, and have found the great majority of them to be likeable people. I have nothing against American companies either; I purchase from many American online stores, and have never had a bad experience with them. My gripe is purely with Adobe (or more specifically whoever in that vast company decides on their pricing policies) and other companies that practice price discrimination without economic justification.
Your lecture on economics is just a fancy way of saying "Adobe charge you more because they can.", which is what I said myself earlier. Your talk about living costs is irrelevant nonsense - you may as well argue that Adobe should vary their price according to the customer's salary. Is that standard practice in a capitalist economy?
No one mentioned that companies exist to maximize profit?
Why do you write this as if it represents some kind of insight? I said basically the same thing myself.
Well, gee... let me see: you want the best product the humanity has come up with, but you do not want to pay the premium? Or, you do want to pay it, but the same premium for the market of 20+ millions as for the market of 300+ millions?
The Internet is a single market. I have a Visa card, which is exactly as good as the one an American would use. All Adobe have to do is accept my money and email me a serial number. They choose not to do so, because they want to charge me more because of where I live. I'll pay the same price that you pay, but I'm not going to pay more - well, actually I would be willing to pay maybe 15-20% more to cover our consumption tax and Adobe's Sydney office (even though I've never had occasion to deal with them) but certainly not the 70% premium that they currently charge.
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Chris - I've discussed the issue with two senior product managers. They obviously didn't agree to give me a discount or change policy, but they are aware of the issue and have agreed to raise it with the appropriate area/management. My suggestion is that they more cases they know of, the better. I'm a single voice, having more helps to make the point more clearly.
Thanks for the information. I suppose it's not impossible that Adobe will reconsider if enough people make a fuss, but I'm not too hopeful. My own feeling is that they won't care about complaints as long as people keep buying their software.
If I were the manager of a medium-sized company looking to upgrade hundreds of licenses I'd definitely try negotiating, but I'm just an amateur photographer with a single copy of Photoshop CS5, so my bargaining power is effectively nil. It wouldn't be worth a manager's time to talk to me.:(
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Could it be that the "true" price is the one one that is charged to oversee customers and US customers get a discounted one?
Considering that the British, Japanese, and Australian prices are similar, and the US prices a lot cheaper, I'd say you're probably right. My choice of subject for this thread was definitely too harsh - I should have titled it "Why does Adobe give American customers a special discount?"
Are Americans just better at complaining? Are they more tight-fisted? Is Adobe more fearful of angering a well-armed population?
(The above comment wasn't meant to be taken too seriously.)
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At the end of the day, Chris, the people who works for companies are just that - people. People can be influenced by all manner of things, including simple, honest dialogue. Most people working in companies actually enjoy engaging with the people who use their products, or so I've found, so long as you have something worthwhile to say (it doesn't have to be praise, just considered and relevant).
I'm not saying you shouldn't post about it, but I am saying you need to do more than just post about it and beware of cutting off your nose to spite your face - CS6 is pretty damn good. I understand as an amateur it's expensive, but in the grand scheme of things at a little over a dollar a day, if you want to use the professional grade product, it's not horrendous. I'd like to see it somewhere closer to AUD250- which I think would more accurately reflect the local costs (plus GST) but I say that without any inside knowledge as to Adobe's specific local costs, so I know that I could be very wrong. I look at it in terms of whether the price being offered to me is acceptable, not whether someone else can get it cheaper, as my primary focus.
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I'm not saying you shouldn't post about it, but I am saying you need to do more than just post about it and beware of cutting off your nose to spite your face - CS6 is pretty damn good. I understand as an amateur it's expensive, but in the grand scheme of things at a little over a dollar a day, if you want to use the professional grade product, it's not horrendous.
You certainly make a valid point - I've known of people spending more than the upgrade cost on a single wild night on the town. From a purely logical standpoint it would make sense for me to just buy the upgrade and forget about it, rather than lose sleep over a relatively minor cost.
I'd like to see it somewhere closer to AUD250- which I think would more accurately reflect the local costs (plus GST) but I say that without any inside knowledge as to Adobe's specific local costs, so I know that I could be very wrong.
Yes, I'd pay $250 without too much complaint. I'll accept that having a local office gives some benefit, even if they're of less use to an amateur such as myself. I take back my earlier suggestion (made when I was in a bad mood) that Adobe close the Australian office to save money.
I paid $269.00 for the CS4 upgrade in 2008, and $307.00 for the CS5 upgrade in 2010. With the Australian dollar being weaker at the time, the prices didn't seem so bad. With the Australian dollar now at or above parity with the US, I thought it was reasonable to expect a price cut. Instead I was asked to pay even more, which made me understandably angry.
I look at it in terms of whether the price being offered to me is acceptable, not whether someone else can get it cheaper, as my primary focus.
I'm no psychologist, but I think it's safe to say that knowing that other people are allowed to buy something more cheaply lowers people's perception of its value. In the age of the Internet, people can instantly see what a product costs in other countries, and will naturally be less inclined to buy it if they think they're being ripped-off. Business models based on price discrimination will therefore, I hope, become less viable.
The problem is that Photoshop is so superior to the alternatives that it gives Adobe a virtual monopoly. Hopefully this will also change in the future as other products (Gimp perhaps?) catch up.
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Adobe could do with some competition desperately.
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But it isn't only Photoshop that's over-priced (my opinion on price). Look at Nikon and its NX2: it cost me over a hundred quid for the thing, which serves me for nothing beyond getting a NEF into a Photoshop or Tiff file. I think it should come as an essential part of the body kit when you buy a Nikon camera. Now don't tell me Nikon uses it to subsidise the D800 or whatever!
Photoshop price? I think that starting from zero, a state of absolute PS virginity (strange, I find that an increasingly attractive word) where one has no Photoshop at all, a good/reasonable price would be in the region of three hundred pounds sterling or thereabouts. That's a bit high, too, but considering it will last for most of one's digital photographic life, not a bad investment. (PS6 will probably do that for me, though it would be nice to have something newer if only for bragging rights!) As most people keep saying, Photopshop offers so much and they are right, but so much is also way too much for many such as I, where PS6 works pretty well for 99% of what I need; it would just be pleasant having something that allowed quicker (easier?) ways of getting, sometimes, from A to B and, on occasion, to straighten those verticals a wee bit!
Rob C
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Adobe could do with some competition desperately.
Now here's a thing that puzzles me. Microsoft no doubt have the money and the expertise to do an MS version of Photoshop. Give them a year and I'm sure they could cook up something pretty much as useful. Likewise I don't doubt that Adobe could create an operating system to rival Windows if they put their mind to it and yet it doesn't happen. In fact I'd go so far to say that MS have deliberately backed off trampling all over Adobe's garden for when I traded up to V4 of Expression Web it felt like a long hike back into history with it being so slow, cumbersome and just fiddly to use. Adobe creative suite however power's on with never a glance at it's supposed rival.
You don't think our man Bill enjoyed an agreeable lunch with the head honchos of Adobe at some point do you? I mean such a thing would never happen in the competition driven world of US commerce, surely every right thinking, freedom loving, gun toting US citizen would object to the formation of monopolies in this fashion, unless of course they were sold the product cheap to shut them up.
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Could it be that the "true" price is the one one that is charged to oversee customers and US customers get a discounted one?
And what that "true" price would be (it is funny that even you put it in quotation marks)? How do you arrive at one? Labor value plus some acceptable (to you) profit you reluctantly agree to grant to the greedy capitalist bastards?
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... If you're hoping that your infantile anti-Australian rant is going to provoke me into making anti-American remarks in response, I'm afraid I have to dissappoint you...
Funny, that comes from a guy who starts a thread how an American company hates non-Americans.
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Rob, why do you need Photoshop?
Unlike Photoshop, Lightroom is specifically designed for photographers and offers just about anything you could need. Brilliant program for less than a hundred quid.
Most photographers I know ditched Photoshop for Lightroom ages ago.Keith
Keith –
You may have asked the $60,000 question. All I want to be able to do is make the odd print that looks reasonably good and/or play on the Internet by posting the occasional image like I do here.
Within PS6, the main things I do are play around with Curves, Colour Temperature, Layers (lots of them, even with Cellpix! – probably most of all with Cellpix), print using the Adobe 1998 space, upload to Internet using that sRGBIEC1966-2 space (thanks again for having had the patience to guide me through all of that stuff – over and over again!) and that’s about it, but I would like to be able to correct verticals a little bit without having to go to the expense of buying T/S lenses that I know will never earn me a cent. Unfortunately, PS6 doesn’t allow that correction – AFAIK! I also want to be able to add text here and there.
I have no idea if Lightroom does all that or not.
Actually, perhaps my NX2 does a helluva lot more than I use it to do, too, but looking briefly at it, it all seems very ‘amateurish’ in its scope and ways But I wouldn’t want to lose anything that PS6 can let me do, so I hold on tightly to what I already have - and understand a little… that’s the human bit, I’m afraid.
;-)
Rob
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Now here's a thing that puzzles me. Microsoft no doubt have the money and the expertise to do an MS version of Photoshop. Give them a year and I'm sure they could cook up something pretty much as useful.
I've been wondering the same thing myself. Given the high price of Photoshop, Microsoft could undercut them by a fair margin and still make a tidy profit. It would also make them popular with a lot of people. I can think of a few possible obstacles:
Perhaps Adobe hold some key software patents. Dubious patents are commonly used these days to block innovation in software, amongst other industries, but I don't think it's a likely explanation in this case. Most of the features in Photoshop can be found in other products, it's just that none of them offer the same feature set in a single integrated package.
Photoshop has the advantage of incumbency, with a large number of plugins, countless books, and an established user base. I don't think this advantage is insurmountable to a company with the size and marketing clout of Microsoft though. They could certainly capture a large part of the amateur market without much trouble.
Likewise I don't doubt that Adobe could create an operating system to rival Windows if they put their mind to it and yet it doesn't happen.
That would be a much harder market to break into. People use an operating system to run software, so a new operating system, even if superior to Windows and Mac OS, would be almost useless without an established software base. There are already several good free alternatives to Windows such as Linux and FreeBSD, but they've failed to gain much of the desktop market.
You don't think our man Bill enjoyed an agreeable lunch with the head honchos of Adobe at some point do you? I mean such a thing would never happen in the competition driven world of US commerce, surely every right thinking, freedom loving, gun toting US citizen would object to the formation of monopolies in this fashion, unless of course they were sold the product cheap to shut them up.
I think it's quite possible that Adobe and Microsoft (and others perhaps) have made a quiet gentleman's agreement - we'll have the graphics software business, and you can have operating systems. Competition is good for the customer, but not so good for companies.
Actually the amount of competition is hard to get right - too little leads to mediocre products and price gouging, but too much leads to workers being exploited, corners being cut (think of the airline industry), and companies going out of business. Capitalism is indeed the least bad economic system devised so far, but it's by no means perfect.
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Funny, that comes from a guy who starts a thread how an American company hates non-Americans.
Yes, I criticized a single American company. I admit that the title of the thread was provocative, but in no way could it be called anti-American. If Adobe gave the British a lower price, and charged everyone else more, the title would have been "Why does Adobe hate non-British so much?"
I don't think I've ever posted anything that derogates Americans, or any other nationality for that matter. Regimes and governments are another story.
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I think you guys under-estimate the resources required to engineer a product like Photoshop, to update it, improve it, support it, etc.
I'm sure patents come into it, but so do having the engineers with the experience, knowledge and understanding. It would be a huge understaking for someone to take on PS, let alone the entire Suite.
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I've been wondering the same thing myself. Given the high price of Photoshop, Microsoft could undercut them by a fair margin and still make a tidy profit. It would also make them popular with a lot of people.
Probably the key stock holders decided that the 2 groups make more by not pretenting to compete in this area.
Check out the Vanguard Group in their many incarnations, as example, who are a major holder of MS. They are also major holders of Adobe. There are a few others who have a pretty large interest in both companies.
While the two companies products go under different corporate names (MS/Adobe), they are tied at the top to many of the same owners. Why would they try to cut the legs out from under their golden cash cow?
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I think you guys under-estimate the resources required to engineer a product like Photoshop, to update it, improve it, support it, etc.
I'm sure patents come into it, but so do having the engineers with the experience, knowledge and understanding. It would be a huge understaking for someone to take on PS, let alone the entire Suite.
I don't disagree that it would be a huge undertaking, but Microsoft is a huge company, and could afford to hire the best talent. Starting with a clean slate would enable them to avoid some of Photoshop's weaknesses, such as limited use of multithreading and less than perfect stability. It would take a while, but I don't doubt that Microsoft could create a competitive product if they wanted to. Perhaps the company has become relaxed and complacent in middle age, and no longer has the drive to boldly venture into new markets?
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They've just gone into different markets, especially enterprise-level software, where there's more money to be made.
Someone earlier mentioned Expression Web. That was when Microsoft did tilt in the direction of entering this market, buying the Creative House (?) products, iView MediaPro, and setting up technology partnerships with PhaseOne (I suspect they took an investment). They hired people including a well-known guy from Adobe who some would count as "the best talent" and spent a lot of money developing photo-centric apps including one which could have been a competitor to Lightroom/Aperture. Then they lost interest. Presumably they concluded they couldn't make money from it.
You should also consider what Apple did when they launched Aperture, their long-rumoured "Photoshop-killer". It made a certain dent in the market, but not for long.
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You should also consider what Apple did when they launched Aperture, their long-rumoured "Photoshop-killer". It made a certain dent in the market, but not for long.
Speaking for myself, the biggest problem with Aperture is that it's Mac-only. In the Windows world I at least have a choice of hardware (I prefer to assemble my own machines) even though the OS is proprietary. I have no desire to buy into a platform that is tied to a single hardware vendor. (I also have no desire to debate the relative merits of Windows vs Mac OS.)
I don't doubt that if Apple released versions of Aperture for other operating systems (I'd like it on FreeBSD, but I'm probably unusual) they could sell a lot more copies, but they obviously won't do that, because they also want to sell Macs. I hear that it's also tightly integrated with Mac OS, so porting it would presumably be no trivial task.
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No argument from me there. Being limited to one brand of computers is a big downside, and I've often wondered what market share Apple would achieve if they ported Aperture to Windows. I have a self-built desktop and a Mac laptop so I could choose freely, and some features are (sadly) well ahead of Adobe's efforts with Lightroom. As for tight integration, Apple would certainly find a way to back flip on that!
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What ticks me off is what I just saw with Dreamweaver. Less than a year ago I bought Dreamweaver CS5. Yesterday I decided to upgrade to CS6. Turns out the upgrade from CS5.5 -- don't know when it came out, but it must have been less than a year ago -- is $125. But the upgrade from CS5 is $250. In other words Adobe is going to make you pay for EVERY damn upgrade, including the ones you skipped. But I can buy a new copy of CS6 from B&H for $383. Screw it! I can't see that many improvements in CS6 over CS5, so I guess I'll skip an upgrade or two and then buy a new copy from scratch when there are real changes. Whoever's making pricing policy at Adobe must be smoking something strange.
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Probably the key stock holders decided that the 2 groups make more by not pretenting to compete in this area.
Check out the Vanguard Group in their many incarnations, as example, who are a major holder of MS. They are also major holders of Adobe. There are a few others who have a pretty large interest in both companies.
While the two companies products go under different corporate names (MS/Adobe), they are tied at the top to many of the same owners. Why would they try to cut the legs out from under their golden cash cow?
That would make sense but then if I were a stockholder I'd want the companies motivated somehow.
BTW, I might have missed it somewhere but how does the cost of Photoshop cloud differ globally?
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I can't see that many improvements in CS6 over CS5, so I guess I'll skip an upgrade or two and then buy a new copy from scratch when there are real changes.
Swap 'when' for 'if' and I think that would summarise many people's attitude to Adobe's imaging products at the moment. They've reached a state of maturity where making significant improvements(ie worth paying for) becomes harder and harder.
I'm quite happy with CS4 for PS, ID, Il, & Acrobat9 and whilst they run on my systems I see no reason to upgrade. PP CS5 does everything I'll need, so that won't need changing either.
Whilst Adobe are trying to screw every penny out of their customer base and increasingly annoying them with changing upgrade policies and poor PR on other issues, free alternatives like The Gimp, Scribus and Lightworks continue to improve and are starting to look credible alternatives for anyone with concerns about budget.
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Whilst Adobe are trying to screw every penny out of their customer base and increasingly annoying them with changing upgrade policies and poor PR on other issues, free alternatives like The Gimp, Scribus and Lightworks continue to improve and are starting to look credible alternatives for anyone with concerns about budget.
Point to note. Items like the Gimp, Irfanview etc are put together on a shoestring and although they are no match for the sleekness of PS they can still render comparable results yet we are told that it would be nigh on impossible for MS to do the same even with all their resources. Something doesn't add up.
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Of course it's not impossible, and they did have something - Google "Microsoft SmartFlow". The ROI probably wasn't enough.
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Oh, man! So many brilliant business-strategy ideas in this thread! I am sure Microsoft talent acquisition experts are trying to locate you as we speak. In the meantime, or if that does not pan out, why don't you try to participate in the "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" show?
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Rob, I'm sure there are many here who can tell you more about Lightroom than I can. I'm still using Hasselblad Phocus and Photoshop, but almost every pro I know now uses Lightroom or Capture One instead of PS.
Can't promise it won't mean altering your workflow...
Keith
Hi Keith
Had a look at Lightroom over on the other section of LuLa; it sure appears to have problems - one of them, for me, being the need for a much more powerful computer! Guess I'll get along without correcting any verticals...
Oh - a new art gallery opened here on Sunday - run by the front lady who ran the big one here that was closed down recently because the owners realised that there were more profitable things to do with property. We had a chat - something may come from it at some time. At least we know each other from the old gallery, so it's not cold calling!
;-)
Rob C
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Oh, man! So many brilliant business-strategy ideas in this thread! I am sure Microsoft talent acquisition experts are trying to locate you as we speak. In the meantime, or if that does not pan out, why don't you try to participate in the "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" show?
Never watched it, must be on Sky I guess. Is it any good?
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That would make sense but then if I were a stockholder I'd want the companies motivated somehow.
They are motivated - to maintain the status quo. MS and Adobe are both goliaths with completely sewn up market places. They tend to collaborate more than really compete. They both lavish Apple with Mac versions of consumer products. They both have adopted the idea of the model year to their production schedule. They both provide limited support intervals and endless opportunity for add-on support. And most importantly, they have virtually no competition.
Google is a potential contender with Picasa (and i suppose and to MS Office with Google Docs), but Picasa is a long way from the professional tools provided by Adobe. Every time a 3rd party comes along with something exceptional, the company gets bought out by these guys. So it makes me wonder what could be done to motivate Adobe? (or other other top software producers, for that matter.) The policy shown by Adobe is one of leveraging its access to each customer.
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Comparing GIMP to a potential product from MS is silly. GIMP doesn't have to worry about the same support issues, doesn't have to pay staff, deal with corporate issues and so on, it's also taken it years and years to reach the level it has.
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Comparing GIMP to a potential product from MS is silly. GIMP doesn't have to worry about the same support issues, doesn't have to pay staff, deal with corporate issues and so on, it's also taken it years and years to reach the level it has.
Have you any idea of the p*ss poor level of support that MS offer for Expression Web? A forum with one or two helpful souls on it whilst the rest are just the usual crowd of IT prima donnas. There is an awful lot more useful info on Gimp etc available than there is Expression.
Why has Gimp taken so long to reach the level it has? Exactly because it hasn't been paying staff, a few million would certainly accelerate its development.
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Exactly my point. If MS were to provide the level of support to which we are accustomed for Windows or Office or the like, it would cost a fortune.
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Exactly my point. If MS were to provide the level of support to which we are accustomed for Windows or Office or the like, it would cost a fortune.
What one company can do, another can do too. The fact that an apparently highly profitable product has no competition is an anomoly. Manufacturing and supporting airliners, automobiles, microprocessors, and gaming consoles isn't exactly easy either, yet each of these industries has multiple players.
Do Microsoft and Adobe offer free tech support with their software these days? I honestly don't know, because the idea of calling Adobe's support hasn't even crossed my mind. These days most questions about how to do something can be answered by a quick Google search. If that fails you can always try a user forum, or even a good old-fashioned book.
The only times I've had to call Microsoft's support were to fix problems with their troublesome activation process. The support staff were polite and efficient, but I wouldn't have needed to bother them if the software had been better designed.
I realize that "support" also means things like adding support for new cameras and lenses. This is a major task, but hardly insurmountable. DxO Labs have apparently been doing OK, and they're a minnow compared to Microsoft.
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Oh, man! So many brilliant business-strategy ideas in this thread! I am sure Microsoft talent acquisition experts are trying to locate you as we speak. In the meantime, or if that does not pan out, why don't you try to participate in the "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" show?
Since you're apparently the only person here who knows anything about business and economics, perhaps you'll be kind enough to share some of your knowledge with the rest of us. I'd be interested to read your opinion on the following questions:
Why does an apparently highly profitable product such as Photoshop have no close competition? Why hasn't the potential for profit motivated effective rivals to join the market?
Why can't Adobe get away with charging the same prices in America that they do in Britain, Japan, and Australia? (I haven't researched prices elsewhere, but maybe you'd care to do so?) What are the American people doing to force Adobe to charge them less than people in other countries are obliged to pay? I'm sure most non-Americans would love to know the answer to this question. I think we should find out what the American people are doing, and do the same thing ourselves.
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Chris, yes, free support for the most part, although there are obviously paid-for agreements with larger corporates or those requiring additional support and the like.
Support even includes websites, user forums, and so on.
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BTW, I might have missed it somewhere but how does the cost of Photoshop cloud differ globally?
Here in Australia it's $62.99 a month, or about 26% more than the $49.99 US price. In Britain it's £46.88 (50% markup), and in Japan it's advertised as "from 5,000 yen a month" (24% markup). I can't be bothered finding out what the "from" means. These are still big markups compared to the US, but a lot more reasonable than the Photoshop upgrade prices.
I'm guessing that Adobe would like to move customers to a subscription pricing system. It has the obvious advantage of guaranteeing a steady income stream as long as people want to use their software. If people buy the software, they can choose to forgo future upgrades if they don't need the new features. If they rent the software, they lose this option.
For the same reason that subscription pricing is good for the vendor, it's bad for the customer. It commits you to paying every month in perpetuity, even if Adobe never add a new feature that you want. If Adobe decide to raise the price, you have no option but to pay up or lose the ability to access the data that you saved in Adobe formats.
I would never even consider renting software.
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Exactly my point. If MS were to provide the level of support to which we are accustomed for Windows or Office or the like, it would cost a fortune.
I doubt that I have ever had to trouble MS more than two, maybe three times for support on any product. With Expression they merely provide a forum the regular members of which claim they are not paid by MS. How much is that costing them?
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Here in Australia it's $62.99 a month, or about 26% more than the $49.99 US price. In Britain it's £46.88 (50% markup), and in Japan it's advertised as "from 5,000 yen a month" (24% markup). I can't be bothered finding out what the "from" means. These are still big markups compared to the US, but a lot more reasonable than the Photoshop upgrade prices.
I'm guessing that Adobe would like to move customers to a subscription pricing system. It has the obvious advantage of guaranteeing a steady income stream as long as people want to use their software. If people buy the software, they can choose to forgo future upgrades if they don't need the new features. If they rent the software, they lose this option.
For the same reason that subscription pricing is good for the vendor, it's bad for the customer. It commits you to paying every month in perpetuity, even if Adobe never add a new feature that you want. If Adobe decide to raise the price, you have no option but to pay up or lose the ability to access the data that you saved in Adobe formats.
I would never even consider renting software.
In Ireland it's €62 ($79) per month if you sign up for a year or €88 on a month by month basis which equates to $112 or over twice the US price!
It seems that old habits die hard.
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Hi Keith
Had a look at Lightroom over on the other section of LuLa; it sure appears to have problems - one of them, for me, being the need for a much more powerful computer! Guess I'll get along without correcting any verticals...
Oh - a new art gallery opened here on Sunday - run by the front lady who ran the big one here that was closed down recently because the owners realised that there were more profitable things to do with property. We had a chat - something may come from it at some time. At least we know each other from the old gallery, so it's not cold calling!
;-)
Rob C
Hi Rob
You might be able to sort out your verticals using Pshops Crop Tool. I think it worked in PS6. Make sure you have the 'Perspective' box checked.
Tutorial here ( No 2. Perspective Crop ):
http://digital-photography-school.com/5-secrets-of-the-photoshop-crop-tool
If this doesn't work in PS6 check out the Edit - Transform - Distort or Perspective options.
Graeme
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For those quoting "overseas" pricing, what is the tax included? (the US price is without tax). Would be a useful comparison this way.
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...What are the American people doing to force Adobe to charge them less than people in other countries are obliged to pay?..,
You mean apart from having created a 300-million single market?
P.S. They are not obliged to pay
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Hi Keith
Had a look at Lightroom over on the other section of LuLa; it sure appears to have problems - one of them, for me, being the need for a much more powerful computer! Guess I'll get along without correcting any verticals...
Oh - a new art gallery opened here on Sunday - run by the front lady who ran the big one here that was closed down recently because the owners realised that there were more profitable things to do with property. We had a chat - something may come from it at some time. At least we know each other from the old gallery, so it's not cold calling!
;-)
Rob C
I to had a look to see if Lightroom would suit my out of studio jobs and was tempted to go for it but then I came across the users comments on dpreview - http://www.dpreview.com (http://www.dpreview.com/articles/7481161037/lightroom-4-review) and went for Fastone instead which has come a long way of late. Not sure whether it's entirely free though as the last download just stopped working within a couple of months as did a noise reduction tool from the same stable. I'm wondering if a donation would have made the difference although nothing is stated. If it works for me than I will, the noise reduction item didn't.
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Hi Rob
You might be able to sort out your verticals using Pshops Crop Tool. I think it worked in PS6. Make sure you have the 'Perspective' box checked.
Tutorial here ( No 2. Perspective Crop ):
http://digital-photography-school.com/5-secrets-of-the-photoshop-crop-tool
If this doesn't work in PS6 check out the Edit - Transform - Distort or Perspective options.
Graeme
Thank you, Graeme, I'll have a look at that and see what happens!
Rob C
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You mean apart from having created a 300-million single market?
Yes, but I'm a little vague on how the fact that there are 300 million people in America forces Adobe to charge them a lower price. Note that there are 120 million or so people in Japan, but their price isn't that different to Australia's or Britain's. Could you please provide a little detail on the causative mechanism?
I'd also like to remind you that this whole "single market" thing is a fantasy anyway - the whole world is a single market for downloaded software, unless companies deliberately take steps to break it up.
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For those quoting "overseas" pricing, what is the tax included? (the US price is without tax). Would be a useful comparison this way.
Today I investigated Adobe's Australian store more closely, and discovered that if you choose the download rather than physical delivery, they can somehow avoid charging GST, so the price drops to $307, which is the same price as the CS4 to CS5 upgrade. This doesn't really weaken my complaint about price gouging however, because the price is still 54% more than in the US, and Adobe can no longer use tax as a partial justification. (In fact the download price would be 70 cents more than physical delivery if you added the tax back on.)
BTW, I noticed that the Australian site still has "Preorder" for CS6, but the US site has "Buy". They probably just forgot to change it.
To give Adobe some credit, I noticed that a full copy of Lightroom 4 can be downloaded for $187, a markup of about 25% over the US price of $149. I think this is bordering on reasonable, if we give Adobe the benefit of the doubt. You get 30% off Lightroom if you also buy a Photoshop CS6 upgrade, which comes to $437.90 for both programs.
It does seem strange that Adobe give a better deal on the cheaper product. You'd think it would make more sense to steer people towards the more expensive option. I guess their marketing people thought the Photoshop market is less price-sensitive.
I didn't research the deals in other countries for lack of time. It's easy enough for any interested person to do.
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I've been trying to download a trial copy of Lightroom, but nothing is happening. I hope someone at Adobe hasn't noticed this thread and blocked my access as punishment.:(
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Chris, before you do, have you read any of the posts over in the specialist/dedicated threads for Lightroom here in LuLa?
Might be worth paying for the real PS after all... if you live in the States!
;-)
Rob C
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And make sure you balance reading those posts with the fact that it's not the majority experience....
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They are not obliged to pay
Ah ha! A fellow free-marketer. Join me, Slobodan, in raising a glass to the memory of Adam Smith. (Clink!)
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Not one of Scotland's finest. If you want to see his grave it is in a church yard just off the Royal mile in Edinburgh.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2009/02/28/fury-as-vandals-wreck-graves-at-historic-royal-mile-kirkyard-86908-21159078/
Pity he came into this world. ;)
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I don't know about one of Scotland's finest, Stamper, but certainly one of the world's finest. Smith could see what actually was happening, beyond the fog of academic theories that simply "must" be true, since they're so beautiful.
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I have a long-standing distrust of the beautiful: it often ends up concealing a cesspit. Which has me thinking about the difference (if any) between weeds and flowers.
However, as a photographer, I'm concerned with surfaces, and so I feel no guilt associated with what I sometimes manage to achieve.
Beauty is also the principle motivator in many lives. It causes pairings, jealousies, weddings, divorces and murders and probably contributes highly to the birthrate. (Though I don't suppose looking around in general would support the latter point - more the prize should be awarded to accident or desperation.) Beauty is great just as long as you allow her to remain a quest rather than a reality, a realisation, because then you can get too close and personal and discover much you didn't really want to know. Isn't the hamadryad, the king cobra a beautiful creature?
Rob C
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Not one of Scotland's finest.... Pity he came into this world. ;)
Stamper, that's a new low, even for the ultra-left :(
EDIT: Especially taking into account that Adam Smith, together with David Ricardo, is considered one of the "three sources and three components" of Marxism. I thought you, of all people, would appreciate that a bit more.
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Isn't the hamadryad, the king cobra a beautiful creature?
Sure is, Rob, and when I was stationed at Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand there was a wat up to the north on the Mekong river where people worshipped a king cobra. Unfortunately the cobra didn't worship the people. It killed one of its worshippers fairly often. There's a similar principle that applies to the Keynesians who worship a theory and insist on doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Instead of people they kill economies.
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Sure is, Rob, and when I was stationed at Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand there was a wat up to the north on the Mekong river where people worshipped a king cobra. Unfortunately the cobra didn't worship the people. It killed one of its worshippers fairly often. There's a similar principle that applies to the Keynesians who worship a theory and insist on doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Instead of people they kill economies.
Talking of clinging to disproven economic theories may I be the first to coin the word austerityism? Rob C is going to hate me for that. ;D
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Talking of clinging to disproven economic theories may I be the first to coin the word austerityism? Rob C is going to hate me for that. ;D
Neologisms aside, I have practiced 'austerityism' for years! Came in very useful after the pretty girl calendars died - for which I suppose I have to thank the Association of Ugly Sisters who took the bread from the mouths - mouths? - yes, mouths of their sweeter siblings.
Oh well, in the fulness of time one can forgive even them. Well, I suppose that I can, but I certainly don't speak for the girls!
Rob C
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Chris - the downloads are handled out of Adobe Ireland, which means there's no GST. You'll remember the recent media storm about no GST for online shoppers and how various retailers (like HN) in Australia responded. Selling out of Ireland has become quite common, particularly with downloads.
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Stamper, that's a new low, even for the ultra-left :(
EDIT: Especially taking into account that Adam Smith, together with David Ricardo, is considered one of the "three sources and three components" of Marxism. I thought you, of all people, would appreciate that a bit more.
Are you saying that Russ is in thrall to a Marxist? You learn something new everyday. :)
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Chris - the downloads are handled out of Adobe Ireland, which means there's no GST. You'll remember the recent media storm about no GST for online shoppers and how various retailers (like HN) in Australia responded. Selling out of Ireland has become quite common, particularly with downloads.
That makes sense. I was guessing that they got out of it by having the server physically located outside the country. It makes the higher Australian price even harder to justify, however. If their 'Australian' store isn't even located in the country, the only possible excuse for the higher price is the allegedly higher cost of maintaining an office here. I think we can agree that this could only account for a small part of the difference. Do you know if Adobe's telephone support is based in Australia, or have they moved to somewhere cheaper like India?
Having calmed down somewhat, I think the biggest reason for the higher prices outside the US is the depreciation of the US dollar in recent years. As you mentioned in your first post, the non-US prices would have seemed a lot better when the US dollar was stronger. With no real competition (most of us seem to agree on that) Adobe aren't going to think "The US dollar is weaker now, so we can give our foreign customers a discount." They're more likely to say "Great, the US dollar is weaker, so we can expect more (US dollar denominated) profits from our foreign customers." I imagine that foreign customers are less likely to complain about the price (in their currencies) staying the same than American customers would be if Adobe decided to jack up the US price. Their pricing policy is hardly fair in the age of software downloads, but I think I understand why they maintain it.
In case anyone didn't guess, I never actually thought Adobe hate their non-American customers. The title was a bit of hyperbole to express my displeasure. I rather regret my choice of title now - something like "Why does Adobe think non-Americans are rich?" would have been better.
BTW, am I the only one who thinks it's odd that free-market ideologues favour free trade when it benefits large corporations, but oppose it when it would reduce corporate profits? (Is it free trade for Adobe to prevent companies like Amazon from shipping their products outside the US?)
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Chris, there is no such thing as "free trade" despite the hyperbole.
Without going into details most sovereign nations impose trade tariffs and other mechanisms to either facilitate or inhibit trade in various items.
This may be done to protect local industries or merely for revenue raising if demand is strong.
Individual companies, even multinational ones, will lever all sorts of issues that impact on their business to maximize profits. Since the playing field is not level (Australia is a wierd example of fairly extreme socialism and apparently free enterprise working side by side - many European countries are similar in this respect) from country to country retail prices, as an end result of the process, will differ.
Sadly, downloadable software is still subject to the process, or at least informed by it.
I don't necessarily agree with what hapens but it is a reality.
Regards
Tony Jay
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I've been trying to download a trial copy of Lightroom, but nothing is happening. I hope someone at Adobe hasn't noticed this thread and blocked my access as punishment.:(
I tried three Windows machines without success, but was able to download it on Linux. I think Adobe's Download Assistant is just a bit flakey. So much for my image of Adobe's bosses as corporate supervillains, with an army of minions to detect and punish any criticism...;)
I played around with Lightroom on my laptop today, and my intital impressions are moderately favourable. I never considered it before because I had Photoshop, but with its current low price it might be a worthwhile addition.
I've thought of a possible way to use Adobe's software and still punish them for their pricing policy. How about I buy the software from their Australian store, and then make a long call to their tech support a few times a week? I'm sure I can think of enough plausible-sounding issues to keep them busy. Eventually the cost of tech support (even at Indian salaries) would exceed the profits that they made from the sale. Would that be childish? (I'm not being serious of course - I have better things to do with my time.)
Just out of interest, does anyone know if Adobe (or other companies) have a policy to deal with people who use tech support too often? With millions of customers, they must get a few who keep bugging tech support because they're too lazy to read the help files, they just can't understand computers, or even because they're lonely and have nobody else to talk to. Would tech support politely tell you to bugger off after a while?
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It depends what you mean by telephone support. They definitely have offshore call centres, but they also have some really excellent and experienced folks in Australia - it really depends on what sort of support you're after and, to some extent I'm sure, who you are or more so whether you're a corporate client or an individual user. I don't know any specific policies or anything, but that's pretty common.
Support covers a lot of things, including running seminars, roadshows, show stands, presentations, co-sponsorships, education support, Twitter, email, telephone, website, etc etc. There are real people employed here doing that, as well as assisting customers with product decisions, implimentations, intergrations and such. A lot that most photogs would never need and never see, which makes it seem difficult when "all" you want is Photoshop. Of course, if you just need photo processing, they do offer a cheaper alternative in both Elements and Lightroom (as an aside).
The thing with currency movements is that they continue. It seems like the price should be super responsive, but in reality companies set budgets and targets and agree to certain things (like paying salaries) for periods at a time - usually a year but sometimes longer in a cycle. The AUD is now under parity with the USD because fears of a Greek collapse or exit from the Euro are causing investors in Europe to "flight to quality" which means they're shifting their investments to the USD - that increases demand for the USD and increases the price. In Australia, we have some downward pressure from lower interest rates and an expectation that the RBA will continue to reduce official cash rates. Most markets and commentators are locking in another 25 basis points as an absolute certainly by July and many are talking about 50, with an expectation that the banks will pass on around 70-80% of that (which reflects the reality of their funding mix - there will be pressures with European liquidity drying up at the moment).
Anyway, the point is that within the last year and likely within the next year, there's quite some movement of the rate (around 10% from high to low) and you only need to go back to this time in 2010 and it was around 0.87 as the monthly average. There's talk that if China finally loosens its ties to the USD that you could see the AUD seeing much higher prices against the USD as the USD falls (not at all a bad thing for the US economy, but that's another story).
Yes, of course, there's also going to be some "hey we're making more now, awesome" but ultimately they will be tracking their total revenue and deciding whether a change in price will generate more through higher demand (look at the price drop for Lightroom - you have to assume that wasn't done with the intent of reducing revenue or just to make customers feel warm and fuzzy, although that's a nice bonus).
Finally, and this is a real kicker, when was the last time you saw a tech product have a price rise? It does happen, but it's not very common. In other words, once you lower the price, it's lowered. The chances of you ever putting it back up, even if there's a massive movement in the exchange rate, is limited. There are perceptions about price increases that are extraordinarily difficult to overcome. We're so used to tecnology costing us less and less which means either the price has to drop or we have to get a lot more new features for us to accept the value. Even if it maintains the price, it's being eroded by inflation.
Companies like Adobe preventing Amazon from exporting has something to do with ensuring that local markets maintain local revenue, it has to do with support issues, for physical products it can have some legal (warranty related, for example) issues and so on. It also has relationships with other contracts and agreements concerning distribution.
Again, I think it's currently a little over priced, but it's going to take a lot to push it down without have a significant effect on the local operations (which in turn will tend to hurt overall revenue when you don't have local people driving sales - remember, it's not just photogs we're talking about). That said, I think that it will come down if we see Europe settle down (one way or the other), China loosen its currency locks with the USD (and perhaps even push for some role as a replacement global currency) push the USD down considerably and the AUS likely to maintain or even apperciate on the strength of Asian growth.
We are blessed and cursed to perhaps be living in interesting times :-)
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The Adobe DLM recommends not using IE, although I've personally never had a problem with IE9 (and 8 and 7 before it), but I know some folks do run into trouble.
I wish they supported third party download managers like Free Download Manager.
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BTW, am I the only one who thinks it's odd that free-market ideologues favour free trade when it benefits large corporations, but oppose it when it would reduce corporate profits? (Is it free trade for Adobe to prevent companies like Amazon from shipping their products outside the US?)
Capitalism itself is hardly the purest of ideologies. Inefficient or poorly managed companies should go to the wall or be displaced by better run businesses the theory goes, except of course when it comes to massive welfare payments to careless and profligate banks in the form of bailouts. That's different of course.
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I played around with Lightroom on my laptop today, and my intital impressions are moderately favourable. I never considered it before because I had Photoshop, but with its current low price it might be a worthwhile addition.
Personal experience only....
As a long-time Photoshop user I recently started to use LR. What I've found is:
- For photographs it works much better as an asset manager than Bridge. No, it doesn't support InDesign documents, Illustrator files, text files, but then I don't expect it to.
- For common post processing work (adjusting exposure, WB, cropping) is is very fast and convenient.
- Printing, especially now that soft-proofing has been added, is much less of a bother than printing out of PS. I did spend a little time setting up templates for my commonly used papers/sizes so I expect even more convenience printing out of LR in the future.
I'm still wandering off to PS from LR when I need to use layers or things like content aware fill. (Damn, where did that wire come from? I sure didn't see it in my viewfinder. ;) ) However, I'm finding that I can do 95% of everything I need to do in LR, and LR's workflow, for me, is faster.
I think you may enjoy using it.
Tom Frerichs
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Capitalism itself is hardly the purest of ideologies. Inefficient or poorly managed companies should go to the wall or be displaced by better run businesses the theory goes, except of course when it comes to massive welfare payments to careless and profligate banks in the form of bailouts. That's different of course.
It is different, Justin.
Why it's different is that it isn't simply a corporate entity that goes down if the bank goes down: it's the guy whose money was sitting there until it wasn't any longer who goes down with the bank.
Can you imagine the scenes in the UK if the Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland etc. suddenly couldn't pay out their customers anymore? Everything would stop, go into reverse, and the only survivors would be those chaps with the private sub-machine guns. Starvation and crime would kill the country in less than a week. That's the part that few seem to think about in the context of bank bail-outs. I suspect there's very little governmental/business love in the act.
Rob C
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For a preview of this show, keep watching Greece.
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It is different, Justin.
Why it's different is that it isn't simply a corporate entity that goes down if the bank goes down: it's the guy whose money was sitting there until it wasn't any longer who goes down with the bank.
Not in the US ... Depositors have $250,000 of insurance - per account.
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... and in former Yugoslavia the state guaranteed all savings and 7.5% interest rate, even on dollar deposits... the trouble was, nobody guaranteed the state (the existence of) :(
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Not in the US ... Depositors have $250,000 of insurance - per account.
Right, Jeremy. . . until the FDIC goes broke. Then the Fed will fire up the printing presses and cover the losses with funny money. Don't believe a politician when he tells you he's going to give you a free lunch. There just ain't no sich a thang.
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It is different, Justin.
Why it's different is that it isn't simply a corporate entity that goes down if the bank goes down: it's the guy whose money was sitting there until it wasn't any longer who goes down with the bank.
Can you imagine the scenes in the UK if the Bank of Scotland, Northern Rock, Royal Bank of Scotland etc. suddenly couldn't pay out their customers anymore? Everything would stop, go into reverse, and the only survivors would be those chaps with the private sub-machine guns. Starvation and crime would kill the country in less than a week. That's the part that few seem to think about in the context of bank bail-outs. I suspect there's very little governmental/business love in the act.
Rob C
It's not the private account holders that are the problem though Rob, it's the builders, developers and speculators who were carelessly lent billions to build, develop and speculate with that have caused the misery. Money was lent against fairy tale valuations of property with French and German banks in particular opening the sluices and letting the money roar into the country without regard to any banking practices let alone best ones. When the music stopped the government simply turned round and guaranteed these gamblers billions using money they imagined could be raised from the taxpayer and the EU. If it was just a case of a few folk living too high on the never never then we could deal with it but they are only a fraction of the story.
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Right, Jeremy. . . until the FDIC goes broke. Then the Fed will fire up the printing presses and cover the losses with funny money. Don't believe a politician when he tells you he's going to give you a free lunch. There just ain't no sich a thang.
Sorry, Russ ... but your grasp of macroeconomics is poor at best and you always descend into these political polemics that never get past the TV talking points ...
Back in the real world, FDIC insurance is real and does prevent the overwhelming majority of normal depositors from being exposed to business continuity risk.
Of course, if the entire banking system collapses, we're all fucked ... but ... duh.
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... and in former Yugoslavia the state guaranteed all savings and 7.5% interest rate, even on dollar deposits... the trouble was, nobody guaranteed the state (the existence of) :(
I'll take the bet on the continued existence of the United States of America ... for a good, loooong while.
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Yes, I know about the so-called bank guarantees; the thing is, when the insurance groups and the governments and all the collected money boys discover their own accounts are void, then the shit hits the fan and the guarantees are meaningless. Printing paper has never solved a thing - you need only look at the 30s to find examples and even more recently you need just look at the funny numbers associated with the lira and the peseta. As far as memory serves, the lira was once around 2,400 to the pound sterling and the peseta fluctuated at around a million of them for five grand sterling. Those numbers didn't get that astronmical by accident. (Let's not even mention parts of Africa and Latin America.)
That was not long before the Euro came bouncing and skipping along, holding its skirts up around its fanny in an attempt to seduce the European politicians. Usually, that seems to work, but as often with seductions, the ride don't come for free.
Rob C
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I'll take the bet on the continued existence of the United States of America ... for a good, loooong while.
Good to learn California isn't broke any more, then. Could have been a catching thing, like chickenpox.
Rob C
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That was not long before the Euro came bouncing and skipping along, holding its skirts up around its fanny in an attempt to seduce the European politicians. Usually, that seems to work, but as often with seductions, the ride don't come for free.
Rob C
Something like this you mean -
France's first lady. (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/15/article-2144862-131AFC00000005DC-117_306x783.jpg)
Looks expensive to me!
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Back in the real world, FDIC insurance is real and does prevent the overwhelming majority of normal depositors from being exposed to business continuity risk.
I redacted part of your original message to prevent further embarrassment to you, Jeremy.
Yes, FDIC insurance is real, and it does let banks take outrageous risks (otherwise known as bets) secure in the knowledge that if they go under the feds will bail out their customers. But the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund is supposed to depend on bank assessments to exist. When the fund runs dry as a result of too many and/or too big bank failures the FDIC has to go to Congress and ask for a taxpayer bailout. I'm sure you're going to tell me that future bank assessments will then make the taxpayers whole, but, as you say, if the whole banking system collapses we're in deep doo-doo. Unfortunately as the situation gets worse, before the banking system fails it's going to go to Congress for a bailout. Then, too-big-to-fail will take over the whole economy and a huge inflation will ensue. How much exposure do you think our banking system has to Greece? Spain? Ireland? For that matter, France? I think we're about to find out. And when the boom comes down what do you think those exposed banks are going to do?
By the way, I also think the good old USA will survive all this. After all, we survived the Jimmy Carter inflationary years. It just takes a president and a congress willing to ride out the recession brought on by the things they need to do to get the inflation under control.
Nobody seems to learn anything from history, though, and we keep having to repeat it.
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But the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund is supposed to depend on bank assessments to exist.
From 1934 to today not one depositor has lost one cent and the FDIC has been bank-fee financed the whole time.
What's with all the Casandra shit?
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Right, Jeremy. . . until the FDIC goes broke. Then the Fed will fire up the printing presses and cover the losses with funny money. Don't believe a politician when he tells you he's going to give you a free lunch. There just ain't no sich a thang.
Do you know how to tell when a politician is lying? His/her lips are moving.
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Nobody seems to learn anything from history, though, and we keep having to repeat it.
Unquote
Correct. The crises in capitalism will keep recurring as long as it exists because it is fundamentally flawed. The next crisis will be in about 10 years time going by history. An American bank has got it's self into bother in the last month despite all the assurances that the banks have learned their lesson. ::)
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Something like this you mean -
France's first lady. (http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/15/article-2144862-131AFC00000005DC-117_306x783.jpg)
Looks expensive to me!
Looks irresitible to me! God, what legs and ...
You know, on first looking, it was all about sex appeal. Then it became something else.
There’s a song within the C&W genre that has the line I like my women a little on the trashy side. Yes, some if not all contemporary songstresses certainly subscribe to the canon of trash, but even though they do manage an animal sexuality, for the most part that’s fairly limited in its effect, in that it seldom rises above the waist. (The effect, that is. Anything else would just be exaggeration and worthy of disbelief.)
Now, take our French lady, and you have sex appeal in abundance but also something else: sophistication. That’s another of those things you just can’t buy. You can drown a tramp in Rive Gauche and many a one has perished in Versace – unsurprisingly – but as with her married, Italian predecessor Carla, the right lady in the right clothes can be amazing. I remember watching, spellbound, some year or two ago when Carla Bruni appeared at a reception in London with all the rest of the International great and good: she floored them by doing nothing, just standing there. It was enough! (Compare with yesterday's Jane Fonda - oh dear!)
So yes, the new top lady of France is worth the looking. They have something special, some of those continentals. I’m sure Fred has seen something similar in Madrid.
Thanks for the link: it’s made me go and prepare another mug of coffee which I’m now sipping.
Rob C
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Correct. The crises in capitalism will keep recurring as long as it exists because it is fundamentally flawed. The next crisis will be in about 10 years time going by history. An American bank has got it's self into bother in the last month despite all the assurances that the banks have learned their lesson. ::)
Capitalism isn't a great system, no doubt about that. The problem is that nobody has come up with anything better.
Actually I think the fundamental flaw in capitalism as it's now practiced is its commitment to infinite growth, which is a physical impossibility in a finite world. We may or may not be bumping into the limits of growth now, but we're bound to bump into them sooner or later.
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Capitalism isn't a great system, no doubt about that. The problem is that nobody has come up with anything better.
Actually I think the fundamental flaw in capitalism as it's now practiced is its commitment to infinite growth, which is a physical impossibility in a finite world. We may or may not be bumping into the limits of growth now, but we're bound to bump into them sooner or later.
That, Chris, has been my thinking for many years. I would have been more than happy to have stayed on my good years' earnings without any rise at all. I see no logic to this quest for growth every year: I believe that it simply upsets people by creating an atmosphere of fear and a pressure that is ultimately unbearable to man or company. It fuels inflationary wage demands which, in truth, can be understood as a means of standing still. As anyone can see, the more money in the system then the higher prices will be pushed in order to take a larger share of that available money. Also, the unfairness where a corner shop can't buy from a manufacturer at a price that a supermarket can sell the same product to the public should be stopped. Big companies should certainly be allowed to sell cheaply, but only from cost-cutting that comes from their internal advantages of scale, not from their muscle in buying cheaply. That's just gangsterism, bully-boy tactics.
Control is always needed in this life.
Rob C
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I see no logic to this quest for growth every year
Um ... ever hear of population growth and poverty?
You folks ought to stick to talking about photography ... finance and economics are clearly not your strong suit.
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Um ... ever hear of population growth and poverty?
The funny thing is that I keep hearing economists telling us that we need population growth to help the economy grow. Are we now to supposed to think that we need economic growth because the population is growing?
I also never said that economic growth is a bad thing. It's undoubtedly a good thing in poorer countries, and brings at least some benefits in rich ones. The problem is that economic growth requires inputs (energy, minerals, land, etc.) and produces waste which must somehow be disposed of. In a finite world, further growth (in the real amount of goods and services being produced) cannot go on forever.
Our current dependence on fossil fuels is obviously unsustainable, because they will run out rather soon (especially if poor countries become better off) even if you ignore the environmental effects of using them. I sincerely hope that we can switch to something sustainable without serious disruption. I like air travel and automobiles as much as the next person.
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Um ... ever hear of population growth and poverty?
You folks ought to stick to talking about photography ... finance and economics are clearly not your strong suit.
You aren't any good at talking about photography...never mind politics. Your only "skill" is trying to upset the members? :) ;)
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Um ... ever hear of population growth and poverty?
You folks ought to stick to talking about photography ... finance and economics are clearly not your strong suit.
Ever heard about birth control?
Experts in "finance and economics" have brought us to the pond of shit above which we are currently suspended or even partially immersed. A pox upon your experts! They all need a strong purgative of common bloody sense or, better, total half-baptism in that pond alluded to earlier on.
Rob C
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Experts in "finance and economics" have brought us to the pond of shit above which we are currently suspended or even partially immersed
Actually ... the assholes that "crashed the bus" aren't experts in finance and economics ... they are a bunch of cowboy alpha males who thought it made more sense to hire a bunch of physicists and mathematicians to run the banking industry ...
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The funny thing is that I keep hearing economists telling us that we need population growth to help the economy grow. Are we now to supposed to think that we need economic growth because the population is growing?
You got that backwards, kid.
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Your only "skill" is trying to upset the members?
... and yours is commentary on other people's discussions ... whatever, "stamper" ... if that IS your real name ...
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... and yours is commentary on other people's discussions ...
That's why we are all here? Only some are less personal than others? :)
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Actually ... the assholes that "crashed the bus" aren't experts in finance and economics ... they are a bunch of cowboy alpha males who thought it made more sense to hire a bunch of physicists and mathematicians to run the banking industry ...
I see; so where do the real experts reside in the scheme of things? Are they amongst the chaps supposedly governing the financial controls put in place to protect us from the alpha cowboys? Are they rubbing shoulders with the Ivy League ivory tower crowd pontificating in front of a bunch of almost-growns in some expensive retreat with nice architecture? Do they perhaps hang around in Oxford or Cambridge doing much the same? Are they the talking suits looking unbelievably wise in the money programmes on tv, perchance?
Odd how so many folks vanish into thin air (or change job-description) when it comes to allocating blame; unfortunately, being able to allocate it wouldn't solve a lot in this current mess - I guess it's just too late.
Rob C
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Unfortunately, Jeremy to the contrary notwithstanding, the term "experts in finance and economics" is an oxymoron.
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Economists are no more responsible for economic crises than criminologist are responsible for crime, or meteorologists for tornados.
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Depends, Slobodan, whether or not they're embedded in the government where, in fact, they can, and do, do harm.
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Within PS6, the main things I do are play around with Curves, Colour Temperature, Layers (lots of them, even with Cellpix! – probably most of all with Cellpix), print using the Adobe 1998 space, upload to Internet using that sRGBIEC1966-2 space (thanks again for having had the patience to guide me through all of that stuff – over and over again!) and that’s about it, but I would like to be able to correct verticals a little bit without having to go to the expense of buying T/S lenses that I know will never earn me a cent. Unfortunately, PS6 doesn’t allow that correction – AFAIK! I also want to be able to add text here and there.
I have no idea if Lightroom does all that or not.
Lightroom does curves (sort of), colour temperature and tint, printing using the profile of your choice, various kinds of internet upload with lots of plugins available, and, in its latest version, quite nice vertical and other distortion correction - see the attached screen. It doesn't do layers although you can get a free "plugin" called Perfect Layers (http://www.ononesoftware.com/products/suite/perfect-layers/?ind) that allows you to do layers out of it (sort of). Adverse comments on DPreview aren't always a sound guide to quality. Lightroom is free to try and not that expensive to make into an honest woman. No, I don't work for Adobe.
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OK folks, I think we're done here.
Michael