Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: Eigil Skovgaard on January 28, 2016, 05:16:10 am
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Am I the only user of Photoshop that finds the Cloud principle a bit intrusive?
Earlier I bought Photoshop to be my property, and my business was in principle independent of future policies from - or the existence of Adobe - or the Internet. What would happen, if Adobe's policy changed once more, and only conform, registered club members could be users of the creative suite - or, if Adobe just ceased to exist? What would happen to your business with a number of cut off licenses? (the support of earlier versions was arbitrarily cut off, it can happen any time again).
I am the lucky owner of CS5, which provides the necessary basic Photoshop editing features. Furthermore, I am not professionally dependent of this software any more.
I have tried the Creative Cloud principle for a while, and the presence of the Adobe Cloud logo tells me, that Big Brother is watching. The monthly "tax" to Adobe is not that big - it seems!, but it will never stop, as long as you want Photoshop plus a few other systems to be within reach.
A more sporadic use will naturally lead to the thinking: "This month I paid x money for Photoshop CC, and I used it one time - is there a cheaper alternative?" - Indeed there is. The Internet is willing to deliver Photoshop CC 2015 and other well known Adobe products for free. Do I pity Adobe? Not for a second.
I think the Creative Cloud is made to gain control, to induce further dependency and to further optimize the profit of the Adobe money machine. If others are satisfied with this development I hope they find the gains versus the loss of freedom with a traditional ownership sufficient.
I have tried to buy Photoshop "CC" as an independent system for my computer. Without any success. Within two years with CC the system would be paid for with the existing prices. But no, I have to keep paying tax to a very rich and monopolized company, the creatively user controlling company, Adobe.
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What would happen to your business with a number of cut off licenses? (the support of earlier versions was arbitrarily cut off, it can happen any time again).
Actually, I don't think that has happened...with Photoshop CS and CS2, Adobe shut down the activation servers due to concerns about security. However, they allowed used to download and install a version pf CS2 with activation disabled so users could continue to use your licensed software.
When you "buy" Photoshop, you don't "own" Photoshop, you own a license to use Photoshop. What you own is the license, not the actual product. The subscription model is also a license to use the software but on a subscription bases.
In any event, this is all way old news hotly debated ad nausioum years ago. I don't think it's useful to continue beating a dead horse. Those people who hate subscriptions are welcome to their opinions. Those people who have subscribed to the product are also entitled to their opinion. I for one have zero interest in a re-hashing of old news.
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Earlier I bought Photoshop to be my property....
Stop right there; that's simply untrue. Jeff already set the record straight. You've never owned Photoshop.
So you're not subscribing to anything (cell, cable, LuLa?).
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Stop right there; that's simply untrue. Jeff already set the record straight. You've never owned Photoshop.
Com'on, not that argument again please.
It has been demonstrated time and again that perpetual right of usage and owernship are the exact same thing.
cheers,
Bernard
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Com'on, not that argument again please.
It has been demonstrated time and again that perpetual right of usage and owernship are the exact same thing.
cheers,
Bernard
That's like the fleas claiming they own the dog ;D ;D ;) ;)
Rich
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Com'on, not that argument again please.
It has been demonstrated time and again that perpetual right of usage and owernship are the exact same thing.
Similar, but not exactly the same...it's the inherent difference between tangible personal property and intangible intellectual property. You may indeed own the right to use a product based on a license to use it, but you own no other rights beyond the right to use. You can't alter or otherwise change the property. Whether the license is in perpetuity or monthly, the result is the same. You own a license to use but you don't actually own the property.
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Simply put, Adobe still owns the copyright. Anyway, whether we like it or not subscription or pay per use is the future. It's not popular with the users, but this is the way it will go. Microsoft and Adobe has started because due to their strong market positions they can without risking too much churn. Some complain but very very few will actually make a switch.
If you don't like Adobe's way to license their products don't use them. I don't use them, not really because I don't like them but because I just prefer using something different than everyone else, and indeed because I think everyone gains from at least some people supporting competition. Photoline http://www.pl32.com/ is one solid but nerdy alternative, another new one is Affinity Photo https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/
When it comes to Lightroom there's many well-known alternatives, Capture One is perhaps the primary.
And finally when it comes to the "control" aspect, I'm considerably more worried about the social media accounts, google accounts etc than an Adobe account, although of course it's not exactly with happiness I open yet another account...
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Similar, but not exactly the same...it's the inherent difference between tangible personal property and intangible intellectual property. You may indeed own the right to use a product based on a license to use it, but you own no other rights beyond the right to use. You can't alter or otherwise change the property. Whether the license is in perpetuity or monthly, the result is the same. You own a license to use but you don't actually own the property.
Talk about trivial pedantry! Who gives a bat's bunion? Everyone knows - or should know - that when someone says they "own" Photoshop, what they mean is simply that they will be able to use it for as long as they want regardless of what Adobe does or does not do.
FWIW I see that Microsoft is now using the subscription model with Office 365.
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It's marketing positioning, nothing good or bad about it, I figure. If I were a pro, then I can see where subscription model could make sense. Although one of the purported benefits of that, more frequent updates, could be annoying to me. I don't really want to spend too much of my time learning new features every 2-3 months. Be nice if a platform stayed stable over some longer period of time. But others may feel differently.
For amateurs who only use software occasionally, maybe only changing cameras every 2-3 years so they don't need to worry about the software supporting new RAW formats, then paying once and forgetting about it may be more appealing.
Whether one "owns" the software or the license to use it is not relevant in day to day life to a lot of people, I suspect.
One poster asked whether or not we subscribe to other services. Sometimes you have to because there's no other option, doesn't mean you have to like it. I prefer renting a movie from iTunes than subscribing to Netflix. Others prefer Netflix.
Luckily, there is other software out there that's getting better all the time and may be perfectly usable already for a lot of users already. Transitioning is a pain of course. We bought into the model of cheaper and cheaper software because no one likes to pay $600 for a computer program. The downside of that is that each individual customer is then less important since they don't represent as much money. We want everything to be cheap, but there may be a downside to that, unstable betas, too-early releases, etc.
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FWIW I see that Microsoft is now using the subscription model with Office 365....
Because Microsoft thinks it is the only way to let people pay for it since they see no way to make it better anymore in a sense that people would buy an upgrade...
The same might happen to Adobe... At the moment they are still improving the CC software, but for me personally the only reason i see for upgrading will be the support for my future camera.
At the moment i am doing fine and because of CC i have invested less in Adobe software. I am afraid to step into CC for i will be stuck to it forever... even when i am retired i still need to have CC to open my files.
Also the prices might go up and you still need to have your CC subscription.
LR started for free to compete with Aperture... after a while they asked money...after a while it ended up into a CC subcription...
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Com'on, not that argument again please.
It has been demonstrated time and again that perpetual right of usage and owernship are the exact same thing.
OK Perry Mason ;D , take the Adobe software you think you own, install it on 3+ machines and try running Photoshop concurrently. Can't? But you OWN the software don't you? You own a license which is specific in it's usage.
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Talk about trivial pedantry! Who gives a bat's bunion? Everyone knows - or should know - that when someone says they "own" Photoshop, what they mean is simply that they will be able to use it for as long as they want regardless of what Adobe does or does not do.
I agree. Regardless of the licence's language, for all practical purposes you owned the software. It's possible to defend the subscription without resorting to what you rightly label pedantry.
FWIW I see that Microsoft is now using the subscription model with Office 365.
You can choose to rent or buy, but rental provides a range of benefits.
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Do a forum search on "creative cloud" (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?action=search2;params=eJwtjkEKg0AMRa9SuunmL4yJYz2NjDMBLdYpU7UU5vCNxU14eQn87-Pul6Cx3EpVrmXIB1ENxyCGMJjAHaSFCKSBI9gAoUbTwZ4c5A6BEzQt6gbiwAISsHEFIbgK1II61HZiC3mP6dOH9HzNuqrFHWobHhrWPi3z9zQpr0ZZZ_03PFUfp2w66jscRn0Oo-0hq1-nXS9hTlv8AWX1Qco.) and you'll find many exhaustive discussions of this topic, for example -- Adobe - Creative Cloud Update (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=78898.0).
Extensive -- yes, exhaustive -- hardly.
I just browsed/searched through all 27 pages of the topic that you suggested, but there's no post that covered my case.
I had two copies of LR5; bought one for myself, another for my daughter. Then LR6 came out, and I tried to upgrade... And guess what, upgrade was not available in Russia. It also wasn't available about a month or so ago, the last time I checked (out of curiosity). Here, "not available" means that, when I go to LR page (http://www.adobe.com/ru/products/photoshop-lightroom.html) and select that tiny "desktop version", I was taken to the "Dealer selector" (or something similarly named, can't remember), and an attempt to use it would cause infinite page re-loading loop. In any browser except Firefox (again, IIRC), but there it would just lead to some other Adobe product selection page, so yeah, another infinite loop of sorts.
Calling their support in Russia would get me to Softkey.ru (or whoever was their "official distributor" at the time), who would happily inform me that there was no such thing as an upgrade for LR5. I could only get a discount if I was a student, or a rep of a government institution or something... And I could not even get to adobe.com to call their support (as a last resort), as going there always redirects to http://www.adobe.com/ru/, immediately. BTW, softkey.ru (???) only sold Adobe products for rubles at an insane exchange rate that was about 20% higher than current at the time. To add insult to injury, they (read == Adobe) would only deliver electronic copy of LR6 in about 10 days! WOW!!! Electrons must be real slow at Adobe.
So what were my options? Stay at LR5, or buy two new copies of LR6? I chose option #3: no more commercial Adobe products for me, ever. I just went on and bought ACDSee 8 Ultimate, and since then already upgraded to ACDSee 9 Ultimate. To compare LR to ACDSee would take another post, but let me say I'm very, very happy... Of huge importance is the fact that, unlike LR (or pretty much any other program supporting "non-destructive editing"), ACDSee does not lock you into their catalog, in any way. And you do not have to "export" anything -- all edited images are instantly accessible by any other program.
Now... Creative Cloud was being pushed by Adobe into my throat with such energy that I now consider them the kind of company that would run "7 viruses discovered on you phone, click to clear!!!" blinking ads. And that's not an exaggeration; if I wanted to exaggerate, I'd say they the the kind of people who'd loot abandoned homes during a war, search corpses for loot, and/or take a candy from a kid. Bottom line, I can no longer trust them, at all.
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Extensive -- yes, exhaustive -- hardly.
I just browsed/searched through all 27 pages of the topic that you suggested, but there's no post that covered my case.
I'll accept that correction; and simply note that 27 pages hardly exhausts what's listed in those search results.
To compare LR to ACDSee would take another post, but let me say I'm very, very happy... Of huge importance is the fact that, unlike LR (or pretty much any other program supporting "non-destructive editing"), ACDSee does not lock you into their catalog, in any way. And you do not have to "export" anything -- all edited images are instantly accessible by any other program.
As you suggest - we can "export" images from LR; so contrary to your implication LR "does not lock you into their catalog". (This kind-of partisan back-and-forth is what you'll find repeated and repeated in those search results.)
As repeated and repeated before: I tried several versions of LR, and I tried ACDSee, and I tried …, so I kept images as tif and had no difficulty accessing them with various free-trial programs. (As-it-happens RawTherapee meets my needs, when combined with a basic layer/blend tool.)
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As you suggest - we can "export" images from LR; so contrary to your implication LR "does not lock you into their catalog". (This kind-of partisan back-and-forth is what you'll find repeated and repeated in those search results.)
To the best of my knowledge, the only available bulk export option is to export into another LR catalog. In other words, it's not really an "export".
So how do I export 13 years worth of digital images, retaining carefully built folder structure (<year>/<month>/<event>)?
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To the best of my knowledge, the only available bulk export option is to export into another LR catalog. In other words, it's not really an "export".
So how do I export 13 years worth of digital images, retaining carefully built folder structure (<year>/<month>/<event>)?
No. Bulk export is really bulk export. There are other options to export catalogues. You can also save all your adjustments and all standard metadata back to the individual files/folders.
The folder structure question seems like you're trying to add a subjective definition of "export" to "prove" your case. You can still export all 13 years in a single menu command - export. But if you do want to mirror some arbitrary folder structure, there's an export setting to save to the same folder as the originals, and the plugin Jeffrey's Tree Publisher allows all sorts of variations.
Export is export, and fully functional even if someone no longer subscribes.
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What would happen [...] if Adobe just ceased to exist?
First of all, if Adobe keeps making money this will not happen anytime soon unless there's some major event in which case we will probably have other things to worry about. But if it ever happens, has any of it ever stopped people? As far as I know, you can still get a pirated copy of the latest CC version for free, and I'm sure that crackers and hackers will find ways to not only unlock everything, but also fix bugs. Or hell, some ex Adobe employee would just release the complete source code on the internet once the company shuts down forever.
I have tried the Creative Cloud principle for a while, and the presence of the Adobe Cloud logo tells me, that Big Brother is watching.
You can close the CC app and disable it's automatic startup without hindering your CC experience. You will lose automatic sync, update reminders and various notifications, but Adobe products will keep functioning just as well.
Talk about trivial pedantry! Who gives a bat's bunion? Everyone knows - or should know - that when someone says they "own" Photoshop, what they mean is simply that they will be able to use it for as long as they want regardless of what Adobe does or does not do.
As long as the activation servers are not shut down. Since Adobe implemented activation in their products, the only legitimate way to use that perpetual license key was to activate the application once installed, hence why they had to release a version of CS2 without activation requirements for older clients. If adobe does something to that, sure you could still use your installed applications, but as soon as you need to reinstall them you are out of luck and will need to crack them just like any other software pirate.
I don't really want to spend too much of my time learning new features every 2-3 months. Be nice if a platform stayed stable over some longer period of time. But others may feel differently.
Updates are not mandatory nor are they automatic. Yes, the CC app looks for updates constantly, but installing them is up to you. If you like the version you have, you can keep it for as long as you want.
Of huge importance is the fact that, unlike LR (or pretty much any other program supporting "non-destructive editing"), ACDSee does not lock you into their catalog, in any way. And you do not have to "export" anything -- all edited images are instantly accessible by any other program.
ACDSee is a very nice application indeed and I'm sorry that Adobe customer care in Russia is such bullshit.
As for non destructive editing and getting tied to Lightroom, you could save everything in DNG files or check the option to save edits in XMP "sidecar" files in the Catalog Settings window. This way all edits will be external to the catalog. You'll still be able to see them applied only by Lightroom, just as edits made in CaptureOne are specific to that app (and I guess edits in ACDSee are the same as well). There is no standard for that, so every application handles edits in a different way that is not compatible with others. But you will be untied by the catalog and in case of failure you won't lose all your edits.
So how do I export 13 years worth of digital images, retaining carefully built folder structure (<year>/<month>/<event>)?
The files are somewhere on your hard drive(s), not in the catalog. There's no need for that kind of export because you can just go to the folder containing the photos and copy them somewhere else. I use a real folder structure, not the automatic sorting Lightroom might generate at my request, because I like to be able to navigate the folders even outside the application.
For example when dealing with backups it greatly helps to have files already sorted on disk, so I don't have to spend hours looking for something specific in old backup archives.If you keep 13 years of pictures into one big folder that's fine as well, but you can't blame the application for the consequence of your choices.
I hope everyone in here has a solid backup strategy, by the way.
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The folder structure question seems like you're trying to add a subjective definition of "export" to "prove" your case.
John, no offence, but you have spent too much time on the internet.
Believe it or not, there are still people who do not want to "prove" (as you put it, using quotes) anything, but who are simply asking questions. Like me. And they are asking questions to get answers, real answers.
I'll try once again.
My case is indeed very simple. By the time I understood I had to let LR go, I had about 13 years worth of images (mostly JPEGs) stored using a particular catalog structure, <year>/<month>/<day>. A LOT of images; about 10% of them (on average) retouched in LR. So, when I say "export", I mean what LR normally calls "export"; that is, with all edits applied. I do not want to lose my edits, I want to get images with edits applied; this is what being able to export means. And this is what export of individual files does. But not bulk export -- if one wants to retain folder structure.
Now, with LR I only saw two ways to do bulk export:
1) To export into a catalog. When you do this, Lightroom just copies sources files with no edits applied, and copies metadata for the edits into new .lrcat database. So we're back to square 1 -- no luck.
2) To export selected files. If you select multiple folders, all of them will be exported. BUT whatever options you choose in the export dialog, all your folder structure will be flattened.
When I figured that I could only retain either folder structure or edits, I chose the former. And now when browse images in ACDSee and stumble upon a decent (for me) formerly edited in LR image and am in the mood, I just edit it again in ACDSee. I'm not a pro, I could afford losing those edits... And I did. Otherwise, I'd have to go folder by folder, and I do not want to do this cr@p. Do you really think I lost my edits so that to be able to cry foul? Seriously?
So, what am I missing? What magical way of doing bulk export retaining folder structure exist in LR that I do not know about?
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Wow! I've seen some trivialities on LuLa, but this thread probably takes the cake. As long as PS works as well as it does, who cares whether you own it or not.
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Believe it or not, there are still people who do not want to "prove" (as you put it, using quotes) anything, but who are simply asking questions. Like me. And they are asking questions to get answers, real answers.
Just to be 100% clear:
I still have LR 5.7 installed, so I can still use some form of bulk export to retrieve edited images.
I did try to export "to the same folder" with "ask me on duplicates" (or similarly named), but the only viable choice available on actually finding duplicates (and they were all "duplicates"!) was "use unique names" (or whatever it was called...) option, but the naming turned out to be a mess. So I dropped this idea.
I never tried to export "to the same folder" with "overwrite w/o warning" (IIRC) option, as I thought writing over source files would cause havoc. Maybe that's not so, but never checked it.
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John, no offence, but you have spent too much time on the internet.
Believe it or not, there are still people who do not want to "prove" (as you put it, using quotes) anything, but who are simply asking questions. Like me. And they are asking questions to get answers, real answers.
I'll try once again.
My case is indeed very simple. By the time I understood I had to let LR go, I had about 13 years worth of images (mostly JPEGs) stored using a particular catalog structure, <year>/<month>/<day>. A LOT of images; about 10% of them (on average) retouched in LR. So, when I say "export", I mean what LR normally calls "export"; that is, with all edits applied. I do not want to lose my edits, I want to get images with edits applied; this is what being able to export means. And this is what export of individual files does. But not bulk export -- if one wants to retain folder structure.
Now, with LR I only saw two ways to do bulk export:
1) To export into a catalog. When you do this, Lightroom just copies sources files with no edits applied, and copies metadata for the edits into new .lrcat database. So we're back to square 1 -- no luck.
2) To export selected files. If you select multiple folders, all of them will be exported. BUT whatever options you choose in the export dialog, all your folder structure will be flattened.
When I figured that I could only retain either folder structure or edits, I chose the former. And now when browse images in ACDSee and stumble upon a decent (for me) formerly edited in LR image and am in the mood, I just edit it again in ACDSee. I'm not a pro, I could afford losing those edits... And I did. Otherwise, I'd have to go folder by folder, and I do not want to do this cr@p. Do you really think I lost my edits so that to be able to cry foul? Seriously?
So, what am I missing? What magical way of doing bulk export retaining folder structure exist in LR that I do not know about?
Then read my answer again so I don't spend more time on the internet than I need.
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Then read my answer again so I don't spend more time on the internet than I need.
OK, I gave Jeffrey's Tree Publisher plug-in a try. It's now superseded by Folder Publisher by the same author, so I installed that Folder Publisher, configured, filled its "smart collection" with images from several months, and "published".
It actually works, and does exactly what I needed. Donated $10 and registered. I wish I discovered it earlier...
Thanks for the heads up, and, if I sounded harsh -- my apologies. Please understand I was genuinely frustrated.
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Thanks for the heads up, and, if I sounded harsh -- my apologies. Please understand I was genuinely frustrated.
Sorry equally - I assume the worst of people using pseudonyms ;)
Having such a varied range of plugins is one of Lightroom's big strengths, and Jeffrey is undoubtedly the best provider of them.
John
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Awesome, Zorki. Glad you finally found a solution!
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Sorry equally - I assume the worst of people using pseudonyms ;)
That's one of my favorite canards. I've seen more threads here locked because of the excesses of real name users than not. I can only assume it's because they feel the need to go to the wall to protect their professional reputations, however bad they may look in doing so.
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That's one of my favorite canards. I've seen more threads here locked because of the excesses of real name users than not.
Since most people are identifiable, that's hardly surprising. If you get a snarky comment from someone hiding behind a pseudonym, why give them the benefit of the doubt?
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So how do I export 13 years worth of digital images, retaining carefully built folder structure (<year>/<month>/<event>)?
That would have been a good question to post in Adobe Lightroom Q&A (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?board=31.0).
I'm happy if you now have a useful answer.
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Since most people are identifiable, that's hardly surprising. If you get a snarky comment from someone hiding behind a pseudonym, why give them the benefit of the doubt?
Again, I think the concept of pseudonyms being the problem is a ruse. Most threads get locked because two or more real named people can't back off.
I suspect you'll disagree to no end, so please take no offense if I leave you with the last word early in the game.
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... I suspect you'll disagree to no end...
We might disagree or not, but what matters is that the site moderators' official policy is to have less tolerance for forum transgressions by pseudonyms.
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We might disagree or not, but what matters is that the site moderators' official policy is to have less tolerance for forum transgressions by pseudonyms.
Indeed, we all prefer transgressions by real named participants - they're much higher spectacle, IMO.
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Well, this is a coffee shop, and among returning coffee drinkers no discussion will ever be to long or finished - only rested for a while - in between.
Personally I find the Cloud concept intimidating and I have to address businesses that works only one way - in this case to make Adobe earn disproportionally more for largely the same product that was earlier offered as a one buy.
In practical life it doesn't matter if I buy the right to use an intellectual property or I think I buy the property - as long as the property is physically present - as when handed over to me the day I paid for it - or it was downloaded and is now stored on my hard disk in an executable and portable quality. I can use it whenever I like, and nobody can hinder me.
When I use my Ps CS5 on my computer nobody ask for more money. That is good. That is what property feels like. Nobody can interfere with my work, not Adobe, not the Internet operator, nobody.
When I use Ps Cloud I have to pay more for largely the same product. I have to pay without any limit. If I stop paying, Ps CC stops working. So, somebody must be monitoring if my payments are synchronized with my use of the product. If the Internet should stop, caused by a temporary war somewhere, I would be hindered to pay, so I would be unable to work. This principle is an obvious threat to anyone's business - and the bizarre reality is, that we have to pay more for a higher risk - much more. In fact we all have to pay for ever, if it wasn't for the fact, that some of us can calculate.
Two years renting and I have paid for the product for the rest of my life - or so it was earlier. Now Adobe wants to earn more for the same value, and who is asked - you? - or me? No, nobody from the paying mob was ever asked. Adobe just recognized that their product had reached a state of irreplaceability around the world, so the time had come for exorbitant demands.
And it seems to work. As long as people say: "Like it or not, Cloud has come to stay ..." Adobe can go on playing their pay-or-go-away-game and laugh all the way to the bank.
Luckily, as I mentioned earlier, Adobe's products are circulated for free, not legally of course, but if you want to run a minor risk, you can have the most used CC 2015 applications without the Cloud. Even I don't like it. Why can't Adobe get enough? Why do they have to squeeze their customers until they are ready to "crack"? To day an army of crackers are ready to crack every new release, and it will not be possible to stop them, as long as the code runs on several million computers around the world. Why is Adobe pushing honest customers into the arms of the crackers?
Greed or blindness? Anyway, this policy has harmed my view on Adobe. Arrogance is not my cup of coffee.
Until Adobe gets wiser - more than a few should raise their voices against the Cloud insanity. Otherwise we have not yet seen the end of the squeezing game.
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Until Adobe gets wiser - more than a few should raise their voices against the Cloud insanity. Otherwise we have not yet seen the end of the squeezing game.
From Adobe's perspective, they are super wise.
"Adobe’s Creative Cloud has been available for 3½ years now and continues to gain strong adoption in the marketplace, the latest published figures show.
Paid membership continues to accelerate – adding a record 833,000 new subscribers in the past quarter (almost 65,000 new customers each week) – which means that total number of subscribers has now surpassed 6.1 million since the CC product line replaced Creative Suite in June 2013".
http://prodesigntools.com/creative-cloud-one-million-paid-members.html December 11th, 2015
As to wise consumers, subscribe, don't subscribe. No one's holding a guy to your head. The numbers above appear to indicate a lot of consumers feel they are wise by subscribing. Or it's a group of 6.1 million rubes?
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There are excellent reasons that subscription models increase revenues. A big one is that consumers are not rational actors.
An argument based on the assumption that consumers are rational actors is ludicrous and instantly dismissable. You might as well support your argument with the assertion that the earth is flat.
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What would rational consumers do in this case?
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I don't know what the options are at the moment so I can't answer that. I'm not an Adobe customer..
I do know that, in general, consumers prefer a small monthly payment over a larger lump sum almost regardless of the actual financial calculations in play. Partly because truly comparing the costs in these two cases is surprisingly difficult, and partly because future expenses are weighted far too lightly by humans.
Subscriptions often also come, often, with the convenience of automatic billing, which again helps consumers make poor choices. There are entire industries that rely on automatic billing and the psychological grease this provides, for survival.
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If I was Adobe and ran x million sucking tubes into a equivalent number of bank valves owned by unconscious users, I would let somebody write about the success of the Cloud machine. "A large number of new users join every day," I would write (even if it was a lie), and I would spread the message to be used by willing communicators everywhere.
Using such messages as an argument for how sound the Cloud madness has become, is like ufo enthusiasts proving the existence of green men (could such guys be holding a "guy" against my head during my sleep? - really weird threats ...)
What would rational consumers do?
Get conscious, get organized, make user groups on dedicated sites, tell Adobe that a greedy behaviour is not the way ahead. And if Adobe wouldn't listen - organize hidden lending of their software, yes - crack and use for free. Adobe is touchable on their economy and reputation.
Many prefer to pay small amounts ... Oh yes, the psychological effects of the machinery has been carefully investigated, before the principle was ever released. But the principle only works with unconscious users, the category that also prefer automatic billing. Automatic this and that is rarely serving the consumer, and automatic billing and the Cloud principle are money machines without comparison. In my opinion it is only possible along with reduced education, which is an existing and growing threat to the ability of independent thinking - opposite letting Adobe think for you. I am talking about arrested development in the whole western society.
The Cloud principle is gradually extended to serve any need you might have - at the distance - out of your reach and out of your control and totally dependent of the presence of the Internet. Private people and even businesses are urged to send their confidential data to "the cloud" and the sellers pretend to maintain security by mean of their own encryption. Yes, we are all one happy gang.
You can also "share" which is another principle these days. Share your photos with everybody, your family story, your economy, your needs - its quite innocent, but soon you receive accomodated offers online.
The possibilities with unconscious users are endless.
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Adobe just recognized that their product had reached a state of irreplaceability around the world, so the time had come for exorbitant demands.
As always, things are more complicated than they seem...
From companies' standpoint, many products reached the state of maturity and, if not subscription schemes, less and less customers would feel the need to upgrade to a new major version. Other than compatibility with new operating systems and cameras, what else it out there that existing PS or LR customers really need? I'd argue that not much, if anything at all.
The "cloud" thing in Adobe subscription scheme is purely a marketing trick: make people think that they are actually getting something extra. A convenient buzzword.
In the software development world we are going through a very similar exercise with JetBrain's products... BUT -- just subscription model, no "cloud" talk.
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What would rational consumers do in this case?
If I was a pro, I'd have to subscribe. There are no other choices currently, at all.
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Amazing how long this whining about CC continues. Adobe is doing the right thing by moving to a subscription model and the pricing is not all that out of line compared to the previous upgrade path that we were all on. Complaining about this is just a dead end. If all these whiners would organize a kickstarter campaign and raise money for a new software product I would have more sympathy. I haven't seen anyone taking this step at all so I suggest to all the whiners, put your money where your mouth is and work towards an alternative software product.
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Amazing how long this whining about CC continues.
I agree Alan, and even Adobe is still offering Lightroom only perpetual licenses for people who don't need the latest/greatest Photoshop (I still use CS3, does all I need), so that's what I got. If you were on the bi-yearly upgrade path for both the CC model is about break-even. So whatever way you look at it it's a lot to do about nothing.
On the other hand if C1 gets their file management system and other features like keywording in order then Lightroom will have a serious competitor. I think their raw conversions are slightly better, the flexible interface is handy but some of the other things Lightroom is really good at are still a let-down.
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Yeah. Stupid whiners. Don't they know that monopolies are good?
Look at all the good things OPEC does, and who doesn't fondly recall the benevolent Ma Bell? And then, of course, there's your local cable companies here in the USA using their monopoly to succor the poor and uplift the starving!
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...What would rational consumers do?
Get conscious, get organized, make user groups on dedicated sites, tell Adobe that a greedy behaviour is not the way ahead. And if Adobe wouldn't listen - organize hidden lending of their software, yes - crack and use for free...
What's stopping you?
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Now, if only Bernie would add free Photoshop and Lightroom to his platform, I would seriously reconsider my voting preferences.
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Yeah. Stupid whiners. Don't they know that monopolies are good?
Apparently you manage without Adobe - "I'm not an Adobe customer. (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=107758.msg887957#msg887957)" - so I guess that many others could manage without Adobe too, if they choose.
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Why is Adobe pushing honest customers into the arms of the crackers?
It is not.
Honest customers choose to be honest -- use some other software instead of CC or use CC according to the license conditions.
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There are excellent reasons that subscription models increase revenues. A big one is that consumers are not rational actors.
An argument based on the assumption that consumers are rational actors is ludicrous and instantly dismissable. You might as well support your argument with the assertion that the earth is flat.
Right, all 6 million customers are a bunch of irrational rubes.
"All generalizations are false, including this one".
-Mark Twain
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Had kitchen sink clogged. Joe The Plumber said: $300. I faint. He sympathizes: I can do it for $200 if you subscribe to our $16.95 monthly service. Rationally, I accept. True story, btw. Then I turn around and look at Adobe's $9.95 for the most sophisticated image editing software duo on the planet and curse: "Damn you, greedy corporate bastards!"
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Oh, there's six MILLION customers?
That changes everything. Well known facts about human buying behaviors simply melt away in the case of six MILLION samples.
Ideas like average, standard deviation, distributions, and probability likewise simply evaporate in the face of these large numbers of customers.
It is to laugh.
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Oh, there's six MILLION customers?
6.1 million to be exact as of last December's stats. By your POV, all idiots, forced to subscribe, all fooled.
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...Well known facts about human buying behaviors...
So, Adobe is to blame for knowing about well-known facts?
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I think Adobe is quite clever.
I just don't think they are a particularly philanthropic. There interested in making more money rather than less from their products, and they presumably have done at least some basic research into how to accomplish that.
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... They are interested in making more money rather than less ...
Nooooooo! Who would have thought!?
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It's madness, isn't it?
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I just don't think they are a particularly philanthropic.
http://www.adobe.com/corporate-responsibility/community/matching-grants.html (http://www.adobe.com/corporate-responsibility/community/matching-grants.html)
For every 10 hours of volunteer service an Adobe employee gives to one or more eligible community organizations, we’ll offer a Matching Grant of $250, and for every eligible group volunteer project completed by a minimum of 10 Adobe employees, we’ll offer a Matching Grant of $1,000 — up to US$10,000.
In addition, we match employee donations of cash and securities at a 1:1 ratio to eligible IRS-qualified 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations. We encourage employees to give back and we respect their personal choices in doing so. From 2008 through 2012, Adobe contributed $10 million in matching grants and $833,000 in volunteer grants. In 2014 alone, nearly 40 percent of Adobe employees participated in the Matching Grants Program worldwide, and provided nearly $3.5 million in Matching Grants for donations of time and money just in the U.S.
It appears that reality continues to ruin your life.
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digitaldog, your startling inability ability to understand what people mean by their words continues to astound me.
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digitaldog, your startling inability ability to understand what people mean by their words continues to astound me.
Then use your words.
This from a guy who's signature states "The most important book on photography written in the last 123.743 years"
Hard to tell when you're serious or just joking around. Probably why so many don't take your writings so seriously.
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See? There you are. If you genuinely cannot tell that my signature is a joke, then you suffer from some moderately severe problem with comprehension. Perhaps english is not your first language, or perhaps you are, as the kids say these days "not neurotypical".
I don't actually believe that you have any trouble with comprehension, though, I think your lack of comprehension is selective, and you use it when you see an opportunity to attack, not because you have actually misunderstood anything.
And while I am flattered to learn that you have been carrying out extensive polling to determine what percentage of people do and do not "take my writings seriously" I have to suggest that this sort of obsession is some sort of borderline crazy, and you should consider ceasing before we have to get difficult with restraining orders and so on.
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See? There you are. If you genuinely cannot tell that my signature is a joke, then you suffer from some moderately severe problem with comprehension.
Actually I think pretty much everything you write is a joke. Seems I'm not alone.
Sorry if dismissing your silly ideas with facts, (like the number of subscribers to CC or the kinds of philanthropic work a company you tell us doesn't produce actually produce) ruffles your delicate feathers. Now that you've driven this topic far OT...
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You should be delighted, because you've been trying to trash this thread from the third post, because you're a shameless Adobe shill!
Happy to help!
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You should be delighted, because you've been trying to trash this thread from the third post, because you're a shameless Adobe shill!
The absurd is the last refuge of a pundit without an argument. But I fully understand that the text above is yet another of your jokes.
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You should be delighted, because you've been trying to trash this thread from the third post, because you're a shameless Adobe shill!
Happy to help!
Actually Andrew is no shill...in fact he's a harsh critic...more in terms of engineering but heh you aren't even an Adobe User so what are you're opinions wort? Hint less than zero :-)
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Yes, because only Adobe users know anything about marketing and sales. Quite right.
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"If I was a pro, I'd have to subscribe ..."
Why?
Because it's the proper way - provided all parties play fair. Most of us want to play a fair game. But Adobe´s business is not fair in this matter. It is very creative, but the creativity has moved from exploring new possibilities of editing an image to invent a goldlined paying system. Adobe cheat us quietly and efficiently.
Within a decade you may easily have paid Adobe 36.000 dollars if you have a number of licenses running: 10 years times 12 months times 30 dollars times 10 licenses.
"What's the deal," you may say - "my customers pay," and thereby you throw the monkey to another consumer. We all row the same boat.
A few years ago your expense would have been a fraction, around 5.000 dollars for the same period - or strikingly smaller. The small-amounts-psychology makes the cheat invisible. The Adobe lovers don't do math here for a good reason. The bottom line is this - we all pay considerable more money after this "rent a software" business was brought upon us - for largely the same product. How can anybody fall in love with that - unless he's a shareholder?
On the top of this - Adobe stamps each and every image of yours with its references to this and that - as if your images were Adobe's property - or you had not yet paid for your use of Photoshop.
So why pay? If you don't sell your images to Adobe, who cares?
In a war you have to match your enemy. If he smartens you out - you need to get smarter!
"This is the well known prescription for escalating a war - the ungodly way into a deadly spiral of attacks and counterattacks," the upset bonus Paters will cry.
Yes, and no.
In this case our army would count an endless number of conscious consumers. Adobe's gurus and disciples would be outnumbered 100 to a million from the beginning, and within a couple of years Adobe would yield. Of course this would demand loyalty to your fellow users, and solidarity is an ugly world. Some made it ugly for others and serious for themselves - because it works.
Conscious users would win the war, and Adobe would have to lower the bridge and begin to communicate for real. When Adobe listened to us again, we would tell them to manage greediness, to do fair trade, to do their very best - OR stay out of business.
Adobe would agree to give up the Cloud madness and sell us a lifelong license to the newest version of Photoshop at any time - and Adobe would promise to keep our older versions running for the rest of our time. Adobe would still earn very good money.
You could put your cracked copy of Photoshop away (without deleting it!).
"Search for another software - and let Adobe in peace," the chills demand. Well, monopolies exist because they are allowed to grow into monopolies and - as the word says - monopolies has no competitors. Competitors are removed from the market with the money you pay en excess of the real value of Adobe's products.
The future alternative to this is a gilded monopolized Adobe, arrogantly instructing you from behind thick walls, a much poorer you and a never ending exploitation.
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Ok, our
buddy comrade Eigil has a point.
Therefore, I am amending my conditions for voting for Bermie to include breaking up the big, bad monopoly Adobe into separate companies: one for Photoshop, another for Lightroom, yet another for Illustrator, etc.
And then there is, of course, the main part of his election platform: FREE Adobe programs for all! Adobe's R&D will be taken over by the government employees who graduated from free colleges or whose student loans are forgiven, and marketing will be handled by the newly established Department of Conscientious Affairs.
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Yeah, Adobe is a monopoly, whether in reality or in the minds of their customers is irrelevant. As an amateur I stumble along without any Adobe products, so it's probably not a literal monopoly. They have done a truly masterful job of creating this mental monopoly, however. There's probably a term of art for it, but I don't know what it is. They're got an army of people out there in the world writing books and guides and training and so on, all Adobe-referenced.
The newbie cannot move a step on the internet without hearing ACR and Lightroom. Photoshop is a common verb. Clients would be baffled and probably suspicious if you revealed that you didn't use Photoshop.
Ok, so what? Good for Adobe.
Modern corporate philosophy of governance dictates that Adobe shall attempt to maximize shareholder value, and they're doing that. This is usually not quite the same thing as maximizing customer value, or social value.
This philosophy is quite modern and is an important root cause for incredible amounts of damage, but it's not Adobe's fault. The executive suite is just doing what they're told, they're doing their jobs as best they can, and they're doing quite well.
But maximizing shareholder value isn't the same thing as maximizing customer value, and only a very silly or naive person thinks the two goals are particularly well aligned other than occasionally and by accident.
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There are competitors. The problem is that people rather pirate Adobe software than supporting the competitors.
Take a look at PhotoLine pl32.com, as far as I know made by two tech guys so it doesn't have the smoothness like Adobe but is very capable. If you want more commercial feel take a look at the new Affinity Photo https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/
Sure these softwares are not exactly like Adobe's, but if your only solution is that Adobe should change their pricing so you can buy Adobe anyway you're not helping in supporting the competition.
If you exchange files with collaborators or clients it's probably hard not to use Adobe's PSD format, that's where the monopoly comes in, just like it's very hard not using Microsoft Office when exchanging documents. However if you work internally and only deliver the finished result you can use any tools you like.
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.. if your only solution is that Adobe should change their pricing so you can buy Adobe anyway you're not helping in supporting the competition...
Good point. However, isn't charging "outrageous" prices supposed to work in favor of the competition? In other words, Adobe-haters should be happy that Adobe is pushing that "outrageous, unsustainable, socially unacceptable" pricing model.
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Yes, just like when OPEC runs prices up, it encourages North American producers to push out more oil.
Next thing you know, you've got software developers in your backyard, fracking, and Java pipelines stretching across the continent periodically shattering and flooding delicate ecosystems with poorly thought out apps.
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If you exchange files with collaborators or clients it's probably hard not to use Adobe's PSD format, that's where the monopoly comes in, just like it's very hard not using Microsoft Office when exchanging documents. However if you work internally and only deliver the finished result you can use any tools you like.
But Open Office and it's successors showed that one can get around the "Microsoft Monopoly" with regard to office software.
What is also being overlooked here is that the big bucks Adobe makes is for the full CC suite and not just the PS/LR combination. There are far more users in the graphics arts community that pay the full freight for all the applications. I'm not familiar with that community but I wonder if they are complaining.
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You could put your cracked copy of Photoshop away (without deleting it!).
"Search for another software - and let Adobe in peace," the chills demand. Well, monopolies exist because they are allowed to grow into monopolies and - as the word says - monopolies has no competitors. Competitors are removed from the market with the money you pay en excess of the real value of Adobe's products.
"Competitors are removed from the market" because instead of paying for competitors stuff, some would rather take Adobe's stuff without paying and then make-believe that is honest.
It fools no one.
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There are competitors.
Exactly. Affinity Photo is quite impressive, even supports importing layered PDS's with blend modes, etc. Slick. $50! Amazing. And yes, I purchased it; voting if you will, with my cash!
The people who use the term monopolies must be speaking of the board game, they sure don't know what that means in terms of software options!
DEFINITION of 'Monopoly' A situation in which a single company or group owns all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. By definition, monopoly is characterized by an absence of competition, which often results in high prices and inferior products.
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If only dictionaries captured the full range of meaning a word has when used in context. Alas...
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Every camera comes with a free image editing software, you do not have to use Adobe. Then there is GIMP, a Photoshop competitor, which is free. There was Aperture by Apple. And all the others mentioned before. None of them has been crushed by the "ruthless" Adobe's "monopoly," which a true monopoly would have done. If anything, Adobe was David, vs. Apple's Goliath. No move so far by Adobe, technical or marketing, could be construed as anti-competitive. Unless, of course, you count simply being the best among competitors as monopoly.
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... If you exchange files with collaborators or clients it's probably hard not to use Adobe's PSD format, that's where the monopoly comes in..
That is hardly true. You can use TIFF. And most knowledgable people would argue today there is very little, if any, reason to use PSD files.
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As we say in business, Adobe has captured mindshare.
Which means that in a business sense, they effectively enjoy a near monopoly in certain large segments, but are not subject to regulation on it! Sweet deal!
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As we say in business, Adobe has captured mindshare.
Which means that in a business sense, they effectively enjoy a near monopoly in certain large segments, but are not subject to regulation on it! Sweet deal!
Ah, yes... how certain large segments (read: the left) would love to regulate our minds ;)
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Oh come now, the right wants to regulate our minds too!
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While we're taking the opportunity to denigrate and devalue the opinions of others, let me take a moment to note that Andrew Rodney (digitaldog) and Jeff Schewe (Schewe) get their livings through continued dominance of the Adobe ecosystem.
So who's opinions, precisely, ought we to take cum grano salis?
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While we're taking the opportunity to denigrate and devalue the opinions of others, let me take a moment to note that Andrew Rodney (digitaldog) and Jeff Schewe (Schewe) get their livings through continued dominance of the Adobe ecosystem.
So who's opinions, precisely, ought we to take cum grano salis?
Both gentlemen are perfectly capable of making their living within any (dominating or not) ecosystem. Andrew doesn't have much to do with Adobe, and Jeff would be writing about whatever system is of interest to most people anyway.
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Yes, and I am certain you and I could get our livings as carpenters with a bit of a refresher. That's not the point.
They both have vested interests in Adobe's dominance. Make if that what you will.
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While we're taking the opportunity to denigrate and devalue the opinions of others, let me take a moment to note that Andrew Rodney (digitaldog) and Jeff Schewe (Schewe) get their livings through continued dominance of the Adobe ecosystem.
Untrue. But making up crap is your MO. You don't have an ounce of proof to back up my income source any more than I of yours.
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Yes, and I am certain you and I could get our livings as carpenters with a bit of a refresher. That's not the point.
They both have vested interests in Adobe's dominance. Make if that what you will.
You are missing the point. Both gentlemen would not have to change their careers. They could continue to write about the same subject, it would just cover different systems or companies, in case it was not Adobe. Andrew writes about color management, which doesn't have to do much with Adobe per se. And Jeff about post-processing in general. It is like saying that Ansel Adams would not be able to write his book "The Negative" without relying on Kodak.
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And right on cue we have the denials.
Go check out their web sites and make your own judgments. Adobe certified trainer. Training in adobe products. Regular speaker at Photoshop world. Etc etc etc.
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And right on cut we have the denials.
Go check out their web sites and make your own judgments. Adobe certified trainer. Training in adobe products. Regular speaker at Photoshop world. Etc etc etc.
And you think that if Apple organized Aperture World those gentlemen wouldn't be speaking there? Or getting certified to train?
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Go check out their web sites and make your own judgments.
Go check out amolitor's web site. Oh wait, zero transparency. Posting as an alias, no info here in his profile. You can click on a link to his book; that's about it.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1?ie=UTF8&text=Andrew+Molitor&search-alias=digital-text&field-author=Andrew+Molitor&sort=relevancerank
Hypocrite: the man who murdered both his parents... pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. ~Abraham Lincoln
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Honestly, Slobodan, I simply cannot imagine that you can't see the existence of a vested and therefore conflicting interest. I assume therefore that you are playing devil's advocate, and/or supporting a personal friend.
And respect both just those.
But the gentlemen in question have been quite rude to me and frankly have earned my remarks. My remarks are objectively true and easily verified.
I am not proposing that anyone treat my remarks as gold while dismissing others. I'm only suggesting that one needs to consider the sources, in all cases, with a little care.
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Try Google. I'm not hard to find.
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But the gentlemen in question have been quite rude to me and frankly have earned my remarks. My remarks are objectively true and easily verified.
Just the opposite. Your remakes have been easily dismissed with facts. In just this thread. The remake about Adobe not being philanthropic despite the facts provided is just one example. The number of subscribers another. I'm sorry that illustrating the folly of your text comes across as rude. As for respect, you have to earn it from your peers. If I can be so kind as to associate you as a peer.
I'm very sorry that reality and facts continue to ruin your life. If indeed, ignorance is bliss, you must be a in a continual state of ecstasy!
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And there insults just keep coming!
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Try Google. I'm not hard to find.
I did, here's what I found:
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2442180797/IMG_4425_400x400.jpg (https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2442180797/IMG_4425_400x400.jpg)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2442180797/IMG_4425_400x400.jpg)
And this (assuming again, it's you):
http://photothunk.blogspot.com/p/about.html
I'm a cranky old bastard who has been taking crappy pictures for 20 years or so. I'm full of opinions and ideas about photography, but not terribly good at putting them into practice. So it goes.
This makes perfect sense now.
Oh, the lack of transparency HERE in your bio, Google not withstanding, is still factual.'
IF your goal is to get Chris to shut the thread down, you're on a roll.
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Honestly, Slobodan, I simply cannot imagine that you can't see the existence of a vested and therefore conflicting interest. I assume therefore that you are playing devil's advocate, and/or supporting a personal friend... But the gentlemen in question have been quite rude to me ...
Neither gentlemen are my personal friends. As for being rude, Andrew and I exchanged more personal insults over time that I care to remember. We also happened to share same or similar opinions on a number of occasions. Which goes to say that I choose my side based on merit, not personal relationships.
I am simply trying to use logic: those two gentlemen, and many others, are individuals who are pouncing on the opportunity when it presents itself. That opportunity is currently Adobe. Had it been Apple Aperture or GIMP, they's get certified and teach there, or write books about it.
Since their relationship with Adobe, whatever it is, is public knowledge, each one of us is free to take it into account. I personally tend to value their comments based on the merit of their arguments, not whether or not they are paid by Adobe.
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While we're taking the opportunity to denigrate and devalue the opinions of others, let me take a moment to note that Andrew Rodney (digitaldog) and Jeff Schewe (Schewe) get their livings through continued dominance of the Adobe ecosystem.
Again you don't understand Andrew's business. He consults on color management (which is not Adobe only ya know) and makes profiles for customers. He criticises Adobe more than he defends them. As for me, yeah, I consult with Adobe (for free) in feature development and I write books about Adobe products. So, yeah, you go right ahead and question my motives doood. Other people know where I stand.
BTW, he is no longer associated with PSW at all...he pissed off Scott because of his opinions about soft proofing, so you got yet another detail wrong.
(edited to add the BTW)
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I suspect this thread is gonna be locked any time now. Largely because of amolitor...Andrew has been rather retained I think.
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Actually, Schewe, you were the chap I had in mind when I cited Photoshop world.
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Be greeted comrads!
And sorry to interrupt the digitaldog-Slobodan-amolitor love affair.
Private initiative is good. Preserving the fundamental right to own private property is as well.
Kapitalism is good too - but in a civilized version: fair trade.
Competition is not only good but necessary.
"Lefts" and "rights" ... What are you talking about? The western world is ruled by one thing: money.
Wings in political sense is something you learned about in school to keep your thinking aligned. Among other basic learning, we were told, that democracy is our way.
Since when? Most so-called democracies today have turned into a capitalized pseudo pluralistic model where your vote can be placed on different parties with exactly the same effect as if there existed only one party. Beware of the political buzz words that have only one purpose - to make you act properly in the super capitalized operating system called "democracy".
There are you (us) and the growing monopolies. That's the reality.
Those of you living in the US should know. The Federal Banking System is maybe the ultimate monopoly. In 1913 a few forward looking bankers grabbed the exclusive right to issue money on behalf of the American nation. Combined with the fractional banking system of today, it gives you the model of evil private capitalism. If you don't believe me, just take a look at this counter: www.usdebtclock.org
Private and untouchable! - for we have all learned to support private initiative and capitalism to stay independent and happy.
The joke is, that we are only free and happy to pay.
The money paid to honour outrageous interests is (privately) send to the European Union and to China where it will serve the forward looking guys to gain further control and profit.
Still love the model?
This example should be sufficient to warn anybody about the risk of one dominant operator on the market, not moderated by competition.
The cloud smartness is just another step on this path. It's a system that is invisibly bloodletting your account, silently and pleasant reducing your ability to stay in control. The fantastic marketing and impressive dressing let you believe, that its worth your money. If you just work a bit harder, you will finally prosper.
Adobe has not reached the top of the Olympus yet, and you should not let them.
This Adobe problem is of course an "innocent" part of the total scam. Adobe is not a monster - yet. And we should all prevent it to turn into one. "Fed" should be the constant reminder of what free capitalism ultimately will lead to. Cloud will efficiently take over control. It makes you dependent of (in this case) Adobe and the Internet, which in my opinion is worse than me (you) in control and doing business dependent of as few unknown factors as possible. Were we promised a prize? Yes, but we were given no choice. Now everyone with their eyes open can see, that the prize was taken by Adobe exclusively.
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Actually, Schewe, you were the chap I had in mind when I cited Photoshop world.
Wrong again...I've been banished from PSW. Seems when I said no to PSW to do a workshop in Iceland instead (door). I no longer spoke at PSW...lately it seem the "regulars" have also been banashed. Yet again you show how little you actually know. Good for you...
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But Open Office and it's successors showed that one can get around the "Microsoft Monopoly" with regard to office software.
For Word and Excel -- yes, but only to an extent.
Likewise, Thunderbird (along with Lightning plug-in managing calendar events) is a pretty good replacement for Outlook.
But... if your business depends on communicating with companies, you have to use MS Office. Or else every now and then you'd get an Outlook calendar event that Thunderbird (even with Lightning installed) will show you as plain text (uu/base64-encoded mess), or Word file that you created in OpenOffice or LibreOffice will be rendered incorrectly by your addressee's Word, or something else will happen that you really can't afford.
So I keep buying new Outlook OEM license with every notebook purchase...
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And most knowledgable people would argue today there is very little, if any, reason to use PSD files.
Unless you need layers. And you do need them if, say, PSDs that your client sends you are mockups of some designs. Yes, you can use GIMP that renders them mostly accurately. Mostly. But every now and then you'd be screwed by some especially elaborate PSD, which happened to me much more often than I'd have liked.
I agree with what you said about Adobe not doing anything explicitly aimed at crushing competition though -- so far.
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At the heart of all these issues with near-monopolies like Adobe (PS/LR) and MS (Office) is the use of proprietary formats. Until respective formats are properly transferred to ECMA or similar organization, there won't be any "free replacements" or proper competition -- customers of competing solutions will always be subject to classic FUD.
Or just sub-par functionality (like Leica's DNGs crashing Apple Aperture (http://www.dpreview.com/articles/5386990162/leica-s-red-dot-forum-warns-of-crash-risk-with-monochrom-raw-files-in-apple-s-photos-app)).
So, for goodness sake, stop pushing for wider adoption of DNG until its issues are resolved (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=103941.msg873314#msg873314).
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I use Libre Office a fair bit too (previously known as Open Office), but I also must have an Microsoft Office as if external parties start sending me .docx files the compatibility is simply not good enough. Maybe there's the same issue with .PSDs.
Concerning Gimp one should know that the project has suffered for more than a decade of too few contributors (software developers), I mean it's still 8 bit and it still doesn't have adjustment layers. It's about the same software it was 15 years ago. They are working on a significant update but it's glacial. I use Gimp from time to time as I know it and it runs on Linux (which is my primary platform), but I can't do any serious work in it mainly due to the 8 bit limitation and lack of adjustment layers. I've bought and used PhotoLine when I've needed modern layer capabilities. I have never had the need to exchange PSD files with external parties though, but I'm not working as a pro photographer.
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Clearly I am a bad person for assuming that your resume on your web site is accurate, Schewe.
"Jeff Schewe is a Photoshop Guru’s Guru. He’s on the inside of the development and testing of Photoshop and has helped guide and direct many features since Photoshop 4.0. Short of some of the Photoshop engineers, there’s probably not many people who knows Photoshop like Jeff.
As an indication of his skills and knowledge of fine art printing, he has been named an Epson Stylus Pro. He is a past Apple Master of the Medium and has been inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. He speaks regularly at Photoshop World."
I naturally assumed that this indicated a vested interest in Adobe's continued dominance. But now that I learn that your own resume on your own web site is apparently inaccurate I see the error of my ways.
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And so let me put it out there clearly:
A rhetorical question, to be answered each of us silently and for only ourselves:
Whose opinion on Adobe is truly worth 'less than zero'?
The fellow who is not a customer, not a user, and has literally no personal or financial interest in Adobe, OR the man who sees fit to pepper his resume with references to hard earned and long held expertise in one or more Adobe products, who by putting these things in his resume indicates as clearly as a man can that he feels his knowledge of specifically Adobe products is worth cash money?
It's not for me to tell you what to think. But I can provide information.
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Amolitor,
Once again your are a free-agent shit-disturber. Somehow, I feel that if you're not a card-carrying Tea Party member, you at least have read their playbook. You see conspiracies under every rock, while using half-truths, conjecture and outright lies to play the holier-than-though champion of truth.
You're tolerated here for two reasons (he says, with his finger poised over the big red nuke button) because we believe in freedom of expression, and frankly because I find your boorish rantings to be vaguely amusing. Stay this side of rudeness and the libel laws, and I might continue to cut you some slack. But really – when you write things that are known to be patently wrong, not just by the people whom you vilify, but also by others in the industry, you do yourself and your reputation no favours.
Michael
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Concerning Gimp one should know that the project has suffered for more than a decade of too few contributors (software developers), I mean it's still 8 bit and it still doesn't have adjustment layers. It's about the same software it was 15 years ago. They are working on a significant update but it's glacial. I use Gimp from time to time as I know it and it runs on Linux (which is my primary platform), but I can't do any serious work in it mainly due to the 8 bit limitation and lack of adjustment layers.
Yes, this is the primary problem of all open source projects. The Firefox group may be the only example of a success in this area where the software is constantly improved and updates are timely. As I said in an earlier post, people will have to put up funding if they want alternatives. I use LR because it works well for my needs. I don't use PS very much at all these days so I've not bought a CC package, preferring to stay with the standard LR package and CS6 Photoshop that I purchased a couple of years ago. Maybe at some point I'll switch over to CC, we'll have to see. I think folks want to have a free lunch all the time and that's just not the reality of things any longer.
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With respect, please point out where I have said anything patently wrong, or where I have vilified anyone.
I have disagreed, I have reported information published by people on their own web sites. If that information was false, surely I cannot be held to account for that?
In return I have been repeatedly subjected to puerile insults.
I have been, on return, sarcastic but have I believe offered no insult, no vilification.
Please check the actual words as written by me, rather than the summaries and descriptions posted in replies to my remarks.
EDIT: I think Michael might be talking about things I've written elsewhere, not on LuLa.
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Unless you need layers...
TIFFs have layers too. Apparently, the only remaining advantage of PSD is for duotone, tritone, and quadtone modes. Rather esoteric and hardly a province of a menacing monopoly.
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With respect, please point out where I have said anything patently wrong, or where I have vilified anyone.
Well how about: you're a shameless Adobe shill!
As for patently wrong, the thread is filled with examples where facts have been presented, you just don't read or comprehend the text provided.
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TIFFs have layers too. Apparently, the only remaining advantage of PSD is for duotone, tritone, and quadtone modes. Rather esoteric and hardly a province of a menacing monopoly.
Can TIFF handle layers with non-rasterized text? I know it couldn't in the past, but things could have changed...
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TIFFs have layers too. Apparently, the only remaining advantage of PSD is for duotone, tritone, and quadtone modes. Rather esoteric and hardly a province of a menacing monopoly.
Also PSDs maintain transparency in InDesign, TIFs don't, and you need PSDs for displacement maps. Equally obscure and non-threatening.
Can TIFF handle layers with non-rasterized text? I know it couldn't in the past, but things could have changed...
Of course. TIF can handle everything except the above 3 exceptions.
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Can TIFF handle layers with non-rasterized text? I know it couldn't in the past, but things could have changed...
Text Layers? Yes. The layers you can save in a PSD can be saved in a TIFF. As Slobodan points out, the TIFF vs. PSD limitations are when dealing with duotones. And yes, I've requested Adobe update that not that very many people today use that old format. The other limitations is in InDesign where PSD with layers provides more options*, deal with the layers. Again, Adobe could and should fix.
*Transparency, especially on a named mask layer, needs to live in a PSD to work correctly in ID
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The Firefox group may be the only example of a success in this area where the software is constantly improved and updates are timely.
Not coincidentally -- $300-million a year in revenue from Google (http://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-hits-the-jackpot-with-almost-billion-dollar-google-deal/)
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Thanks everyone who responded to the PSD/TIFF & layers questions.
Will try to request TIFFs next time and see if that works better...
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... Concerning Gimp one should know that the project has suffered for more than a decade of too few contributors (software developers), I mean it's still 8 bit and it still doesn't have adjustment layers. It's about the same software it was 15 years ago. They are working on a significant update but it's glacial...
And that is the crux of the debate. To make technical progress, companies need to make profit (or be funded by someone who does). One can hardly argue that moving from 8 to 16 bits and introducing layers is an anti-competitive, monopolistic move.
Also, while there might be some technical similarities, it is unfair otherwise to compare Adobe to MS. MS has demonstrably been engaged in predatory, anti-competitve marketing practices, and taken to court for that.
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Thanks everyone who responded to the PSD/TIFF & layers questions...
You are welcome. There is an old thread, spanning from 2007 to today, titled "Why use TIFF?" If you want to dig deeper into the issue:
http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=18965.msg134231#msg134231
P.S. Check your PM
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Administrator and senior members are about to be "nuked" in the same kamikaze-like attack in the name of "good behaviour".
Serious stuff!
Or bluff. Is this the MO around here to wrap unpleasant issues in noise - attempting to make them invisible and forgotten? A certain bird sticks its head into the bushes or sand to avoid unpleasant realities. The main part of the body is still exposed of course and will be hit by reality sooner or later. This acting might indicate a wider familiarization with Adobe, that participants of this forum are ready to reveal here. Fair enough. Object the wedding or stay silent for ever.
To get rid of all the unpleasant thinking we are now welcome to recapitulate an old tread about TIFF vs. PSD.
One of the interesting observations in 2007 was, that Adobe owns PSD, but also the rights to TIFF.
Could this be another explanation on, why very few alternative editing systems, able to manage layers, exist? Would you launch a new project that from the very beginning was dependent of Adobes handling of the legality? Hardly. Another example of how dominant companies keep competition at the distance. Is it fair trade? If you ask Adobe, they would call it timely precaution. I call it an unreasonable act to avoid competitive development.
A dominant company as Adobe will keep facilitating its way to the absolute monopoly unless it is governed by the users. Just follow.
I will rest my case with this, not least because I fear to be hit by a red-button-finger whirling around in a small space.
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Wow! I've seen some trivialities on LuLa, but this thread probably takes the cake. As long as PS works as well as it does, who cares whether you own it or not.
I certainly do for one.
This argument is much the same as the cashless society debate. Just who's money is it and why put yourself so blatantly at the mercy of third parties? You can argue until the cows come home that the Adobe and the Banks are perfect angels and would never take advantage of the situation, but you know in your heart that they damn well will.
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Administrator and senior members are about to be "nuked" in the same kamikaze-like attack in the name of "good behaviour".
Serious stuff!
Or bluff. Is this the MO around here to wrap unpleasant issues in noise - attempting to make them invisible and forgotten? A certain bird sticks its head into the bushes or sand to avoid unpleasant realities. The main part of the body is still exposed of course and will be hit by reality sooner or later. This acting might indicate a wider familiarization with Adobe, that participants of this forum are ready to reveal here. Fair enough. Object the wedding or stay silent for ever.
To get rid of all the unpleasant thinking we are now welcome to recapitulate an old tread about TIFF vs. PSD.
One of the interesting observations in 2007 was, that Adobe owns PSD, but also the rights to TIFF.
Could this be another explanation on, why very few alternative editing systems, able to manage layers, exist? Would you launch a new project that from the very beginning was dependent of Adobes handling of the legality? Hardly. Another example of how dominant companies keep competition at the distance. Is it fair trade? If you ask Adobe, they would call it timely precaution. I call it an unreasonable act to avoid competitive development.
A dominant company as Adobe will keep facilitating its way to the absolute monopoly unless it is governed by the users. Just follow.
I will rest my case with this, not least because I fear to be hit by a red-button-finger whirling around in a small space.
Why do members keep repeating that Adobe is a monopoly when there is clearly other products available? If they don't like Adobe products then don't use them and let the members who like the products use them without the continued attacks.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/definition/monopoly
The patience of the owners of LULA is clearly getting stretched and I assume that some members don't care if they get banned. Members are entitled to their opinions but it isn't always wise to air them. :(
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Stamper,
I have tried to create the impression of "actual monopoly" regarding Adobe (have missed some times) and in your citation, you can find the expressions:
"dominant Company" and "its way to the absolute monopoly".
Try to look up "actual monopoly".
My intention with this thread was to initiate some thinking about the difference between owning a one time paid for licence (safe for you) versus the cloud trap (only safe for Adobe). If people want to walk blindly into that trap, is is their own free choice. Of course.
Think about it while you continue as usual.
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Clearly I am a bad person for assuming that your resume on your web site is accurate, Schewe.
"Jeff Schewe is a Photoshop Guru’s Guru. He’s on the inside of the development and testing of Photoshop and has helped guide and direct many features since Photoshop 4.0. Short of some of the Photoshop engineers, there’s probably not many people who knows Photoshop like Jeff.
As an indication of his skills and knowledge of fine art printing, he has been named an Epson Stylus Pro. He is a past Apple Master of the Medium and has been inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame. He speaks regularly at Photoshop World."
I naturally assumed that this indicated a vested interest in Adobe's continued dominance. But now that I learn that your own resume on your own web site is apparently inaccurate I see the error of my ways.
Again, what you assume to be is accurate...I already said that I'm locked into Adobe processing. I already said I've been involved in PS/LR/ACR processing and that I write books about it. And yes, I'm pretty much a Photoshop's Guru's Guru...something other experts have anointed on me. I never claimed anything opposite. But even with my Adobe fanboy status, I can still have a contrary opinion.
But that is something you apparently don't understand. And again, you seem to lump EVERYBODY who doesn't HATE Adobe with the same brush...like Andrew is an Adobe shill.
You are a putz...there, I finally said it. Now, what are ya gonna do about it?
:~)
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You are a putz...there, I finally said it.
You're being awfully unfair to the putz community for lumping this fellow into their camp. :o
Schmuck?
http://grammarist.com/spelling/schmuck-versus-putz/ (http://grammarist.com/spelling/schmuck-versus-putz/)
Well which is more appropriate? That's surely a more useful discussion than what we've seen here thus far.....
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I find, to my astonishment, that I have not been banned. Since it has been made explicit and clear to me that I should at any rate consider myself banned I will now behave as if that were literally true.
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Schmuck?
"Putz", "schmuck" from senior forum members... I assume these can now be used freely here?
Or are there any specific rules allowing this, like having more than 10k posts, or being a personal friend of Michael?
So many questions... Somebody should update FAQ methinks.
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... Somebody should update FAQ...
They just did. (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=107950.msg888810#msg888810)
So, if you don't see Jeff posting in the next 24 hours, he's been banned for a day ;)
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"Putz", "schmuck" from senior forum members... I assume these can now be used freely here?
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/107161/is-schmuck-really-an-obscene-word
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2vs2b5/does_anyone_actually_say_putz_or_is_it_just_a/
I hear it used more frequently as "just putzing around the house" or something like that.
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Wrong again...I've been banished from PSW. Seems when I said no to PSW to do a workshop in Iceland instead (door). I no longer spoke at PSW...lately it seem the "regulars" have also been banashed.
That does not bode well.
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Oh, thanks, Andrew, now I can rest assured that when Trump said Hillary was "shlonged" that was not obscene? ;)
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http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/107161/is-schmuck-really-an-obscene-word
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2vs2b5/does_anyone_actually_say_putz_or_is_it_just_a/
I hear it used more frequently as "just putzing around the house" or something like that.
I am well aware of both meanings and uses of these words. And yes, they are not obscene, they are pejorative, which is way more effective if you want to deeply insult someone.
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Oh, thanks, Andrew, now I can rest assured that when Trump said Hillary was "shlonged" that was not obscene? ;)
It's a made up Trump word FWIW. Tea-bagged? Now that may be different. ;D
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Wrong again...I've been banished from PSW.
You too? :D
Not sure of the accuracy of this and it's OT (but that's where this discussion has traversed lately) but I heard KelbyOne just laid off 30 people the other day.
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So, do I really have to ban all of you putzes?
I think we'll just call it a day on this thread and leave it at that.
Time to move on. Yes, even from the Coffee Corner. (Don't you all have lives to lead??)