How is that Creative Cloud Working out for you? CEO top 10 pay raise.

[ButchM]

So for me it isn't the present ... it's the future that concerns me.

Robert

Exactly my concern as well. I doubt much will change drastically in the short term. What is likely to transpire further down the road is quite likely not going to be as welcome as the current status quo.

[chez]

Future proof yourself. Convert your finished work to tiff. I've been doing that for years. Once you are locked into a proprietary format like Adobe has...you are locked in no matter if the software is a subscription or perpetual license. The day you started using Adobe, you locked yourself in unless you converted to a non proprietary format.

I have my work in two formats, raw and tiff. This future proofs me. I never see the need to go back say two years from now and work on an image at the layer level. I'll either print out another copy from the tiff file or I would reprocess from the raw as the processing tools continue to get better so I would rather start from scratch with the better tools.

Right now I'm on CC and do not feel trapped at all.

Well, I've upgraded to CC after being incredibly p...ed off with Adobe. I don't particularly mind paying the monthly charge for Lightroom and Photoshop (after all, it's not so much more than upgrading every couple of years, and it spreads the cash-flow).  But what really concerns me (and I don't know what to do about it) is that as time moves on it's rapidly becoming impossible to step back.  What do I do when Lightroom becomes Lightroom CC and I can't step back because stepping back might mean having to rework all my raw images?

I do think it's very worrying that we are going down this road without having the option of freezing at a particular point (perhaps when we can't afford to continue paying the CC subscription).

So for me it isn't the present ... it's the future that concerns me.

Robert

[Martin Kristiansen]

Once again, you gloss over the whole point. I didn't ask if those who do use Photoshop have achieved success. I queried the group if they actually believe success can only be achieved via a specific brand and version of software. If said software is not employed it is impossible to succeed?

If that is indeed the case ... shouldn't ALL Adobe users be equally successful? By your logic, all that is required is a specific brand name and version number in order to be successful.

Seriously, if you honestly believe that, shouldn't you be dissuading everyone from using the tools you count on to offer you an even more distinct competitive advantage?

Interesting logic. If there is a motor race and a particular vehicle is much faster than all the other vehicles would you expect everyone that uses that vehicle to win the race?

Photoshop is much better for what I need than competing products. If I didn't use it I would be at a competitive disadvantage. However it is blatantly obvious that it is not the only element needed for success. I won't bother mentioning the others. They are obvious if you give it some thought.

[Robert Ardill]

Future proof yourself. Convert your finished work to tiff.

Yes, well that's OK up to a point.  However in my case I have tens of thousand images that I haven't got anywhere near processing (I know, it's ridiculous, but there you are ... I enjoy taking the pics more than working on them).  All my finished work is in tif or psd ...  BUT, one of the really nice things in Photoshop is the ability to embed the raw image as a smart object.  That means that if better raw processing comes along we can make use of the improvement without having to redo the whole edit (or we might simply want to do some tweaking of the raw processing).  What happens if you do this in 3 years time, stop paying for CC ... and find you can't go back to whatever ACR version was supported in CS6?

What happens if you use some of the new filters in CC and these don't work in CS6?  And so on.

To my mind, CC is a one-way trip ... going back is more than likely going to be very difficult or impossible.  So I do think there's real cause for concern, and I really wish Adobe would find a way of allowing us to freeze our software at a certain point so that we could continue to use it without being obliged to continue with the subscription.

This sort of business model may be good business for now - but it really will encourage 3rd-parties to step up.  My hope is that when that happens, as it will, Adobe will find it necessary to become a bit more flexible.

Robert

[ButchM]

However it is blatantly obvious that it is not the only element needed for success.

Of course it is ... which is why I posed the question in response to:

A question that will become increasingly important as more time passes is: how is not using that Creative Cloud working out for you? It's pretty easy to stick with CS6 at the moment, but sooner or later you will be using antiquated software that puts you at a competitive disadvantage. Since you are using CC, I presume you don't have a viable alternative to suggest, right?

Which also presumes that by the time CS6 does in fact become "antiquated" there will still be no other viable options to Adobe products. A line of thought I am not convinced will be the case.