Adobe moving to the web

[Schewe]

Hi Jeff, perhaps the attitude of delaying an upgrade is a mix of prudence ("is it buggy? Will it be compatible with my XYZ plugin?") and economic assessment ("Do I really need it? Is there anything new that my workflow will benefit from? Should I consider to skip the upgrade?" - and these are tough times we all know); questions that may take some time to evaluate properly and answer to.

I don't disagree on the "is it worth it" question but completely disagree delaying an upgrade based on compatibility and buggyness. That's why you install the new upgrade while continuing to use the previous version for mission critical projects. As with any change it takes a while to get up to speed on a new upgrade and I think it's penny wise but pound foolish to delay an inevitable upgrade...the sooner you get it installed and start using it the longer life you get out of the upgrade. If you decide to upgrade in the middle of a version then that tends to push back the upgrade on the next version with the result being you are always out of sync.

A monopolist, I think, can make his user base angry (yes, they will upgrade just the same), nonetheless the very same user base will kiss him bye-bye as soon as a viable alternative appears - and with technology evolving at such an high rate, it's just a matter of time... Who knows!?!

It's possible I suppose but highly unlikely...Photoshop's biggest competitor has always been the last version of Photoshop. I seriously doubt that anything will topple Photoshop. I think there are niche applications that can nibble around the edges but I don't see anybody coming out with something that could have a major impact on the market penetration of Photoshop. Whether or not Photoshop remains the revenue producer for Adobe in the future as it has been in the past, I don't know. But I don't see the market share diminishing in the foreseeable future. Photoshop is the pro standard and while it may have anti-fans, pros who need the functionality really don't have a choice.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Me? I switched to Mac, but I'm still a geek ;-)

I think this is the definition of an oxymoron!

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi Jeff,

While I agree with most of what you said in the above post, the following is what it boils down to, IMHO:

Photoshop is the pro standard and while it may have anti-fans, pros who need the functionality really don't have a choice.

We could agree on Adobe having a monopoly position on a large part of the "professional" market potential, I disagree about not having a choice. There are alternatives, some even more potent than the Adobe implementation, but they might complicate the workflow a bit by adding another (software) step to the process.

However, and that seems the thread's leading observation on the change in course (price increase plus dependency on an internet connection), with Adobe itself adding thresholds to the considerations it might spark a tipping of the scale against Adobe. Maybe you remember the (Windows OS) Rawshooter camera Raw converter that was tipping the scale against Adobe, and other alternatives? Such initiatives will only be encouraged by effectively raising the price, and Adobe may not be able to buy out all threats as easily as that particular one ...

Cheers,
Bart

[Schewe]

Maybe you remember the (Windows OS) Rawshooter camera Raw converter that was tipping the scale against Adobe, and other alternatives? Such initiatives will only be encouraged by effectively raising the price, and Adobe may not be able to buy out all threats as easily as that particular one ...

Just to be perfectly clear, Rawshooter was not a threat, ok? Adobe didn't buy it to kill a competitor, they bought it to get a brain...and the engineer that Thomas Knoll respected in Michael Johnson.

The original Rawshooter was free....hard to compete against free ya know? But Pixmantec was on the ropes looking to sell to the highest bidder.

Michael, if you don't know, was one of the top engineers at Phase One working on Capture One. He left out of frustration about several things and developed the free version of Rawshooter to basically raise a middle finger to Phase One. The free version was very well accepted (hey it was FREE) but the paid version struggled. I know some stuff that I'm not at liberty to discuss...but suffice it to say that Michael Johnson didn't translate from Denmark to Silicon Valley really well.

Was the purchase of Pixmantec useful? Yes...was it to kill an emerging competitor? No...did it all work out? Kinda...

[joofa]

I disagree about not having a choice. There are alternatives, some even more potent than the Adobe implementation, but they might complicate the workflow a bit by adding another (software) step to the process.

True, agreed. And, some of the complication can be avoided if one stays in Photoshop. Sometime ago I had the need to load raw grayscale data in Photoshop such as the one shown below:

In addition I also wanted to separate the color channels in R,G,B,G images so that I can do some color-plane specific stuff. Photoshop doesn't seem to provide this capability. So, I put all of this into a Photoshop plugin, which is freely available from the website link in my signature below. I hope some of you find it useful. Unfortunately, it is Photoshop CS3, Mac 10.6 only, as that is what I have.

While I was there I provided a very rudimentary deMosaic capability using libraw so that I can compare with ACR import into Photoshop. As an advantage it enabled me to load those raw files into Photoshop CS3 which it otherwise did not recognize (perhaps the raw files are more recent than the Photoshop version, etc.). For example see the image below:

The interface is very rudimentary (don't compare to ACR or LR, etc.):

But, it gets the work done for me in certain areas. And, anybody is free to use it if they find it helpful.

Sincerely,

Joofa

[BernardLanguillier]

The article below should provide visibility to the MAc users about the kind of problems they might run into if they ever need to buy a new Mac and want to avoid upgrading PS to its latest version with the costs mentioned in this tread.

http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2011/20111210_1-SnowLeopardOnMacPro.html

... and we are talking the n-1 version of the OS only 2 years old.

Cheers,
Bernard

[PierreVandevenne]

Indeed. I have recovered a couple of crashed macs for friends recently. While the crash wasn't the Mac's fault - in both cases a fall had caused the the HD to fail - the reinstallation/restore was... entertaining. Both Mac failed on the Intel SSD I had available (essentially because Apple saved on a cable). One of the user then didn't like Lion and had app compatibility issues and wanted to downgrade back to Snow Leopard, not easy for an average user. The other one had so many problems restoring is backups that we also went back to Snow Leopard, updated it externally, then restored the backup, then went to Lion. Without another Mac, a couple of drives and external boots, the know how to manipulate partitions, this wasn't really doable.

[Alan Goldhammer]

The joys of being a Win7 user!

[BernardLanguillier]

The joys of being a Win7 user!

Yep, Win7 is an excellent product indeed. I am using at work and they have found a remarkable balance between ease of use and power user work efficiency.

Our friend Steve has been pushing OSX way to far towards eye candy please at first sight products like Lion.

The App store is by far more big Brotherish than Win ever was. The once good guys at Apple have turned into the big vilains incredibly fast really. And that is a stock holder speaking here!

Cheers,
Bernard

[ProDesignTools]

Some good news!  Looks like Adobe is backing off the big changes to their CS6 upgrade policy, which should be a relief for older customers ...

Adobe Listens, Postpones CS6 Upgrade Policy Changes — CS3 & CS4 on Track
   
   

[Rhossydd]

Looks like Adobe is backing off the big changes to their CS6 upgrade policy, which should be a relief for older customers ...

So now they've annoyed all their customers that rushed out to buy a CS5 upgrade to stay in the loop.

[aduke]

That would be me.

Alan

[Tim Lookingbill]

At least they got me to buy to where I got a good deal upgrading CS3 to CS5 for $133 w/free shipping off Amazon.

Just haven't gotten around to installing it, yet.

Got a restoration job right after the upgrade arrived in mid-December and didn't want to have to learn new software and deal with any installs and online updating issues.

[john beardsworth]

But you could have put that money in the bank and waited till the end of the year. Just think of the interest you would have earned....

[Rhossydd]

At least they got me to buy to where I got a good deal upgrading CS3 to CS5 for $133 w/free shipping off Amazon.

Lucky you. In the UK it's been £160 ($248)..............................no sale here

Got a restoration job right after the upgrade arrived in mid-December and didn't want to have to learn new software and deal with any installs and online updating issues.

What features in CS5 were useful that aren't in CS3 ?

[ProDesignTools]

Hi Alan,

You're probably not alone in that, but Adobe does have a Product Return & Refund Policy if that’s a possibility you want to consider.
 

[aduke]

Hi Alan,

You're probably not alone in that, but Adobe does have a Product Return & Refund Policy if that’s a possibility you want to consider.
 

That's nice to know, but I probably keep it. I really hate to return things.

Thanks

Alan

[ProDesignTools]

Sure - and in any event with the way that Adobe's "tiered upgrades" work, owning the latest release will get you a lower upgrade cost to CS6 vs. older versions. 

In other words, your investment to get to CS5.5 would not be wasted but rather step you closer.
   

[BernardLanguillier]

Good move.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Tim Lookingbill]

Lucky you. In the UK it's been £160 ($248)..............................no sale here
What features in CS5 were useful that aren't in CS3 ?

Bought CS5 for other reasons over the restoration job which doesn't really take advantage of any of CS5's improvements. I already finished the job yesterday, anyway. I have an old 4870 Epson scanner that works fine and I just didn't want to put the kibosh on it working with a new install of software.

I'm just upgrading because of new hardware I recently bought to run CS5.

I've read CS5 is more stable and faster and takes advantage of 64bit Core 2 Duo processors (my 2010 MacMini/OS 10.6.8 ) and memory access architecture. I have 8 gigs of ram and I want Photoshop to write most if not all the data their instead of to the scratch disk. My MacMini has only Firewire to attach an external HD for scratch disk if I didn't want to use the main system's SATA internal HD which isn't recommended.

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404901.html

Secondly, along with added features and tools there's been huge improvements in previews with ACR's new 2010 process engine over the old 2003 engine in CS3. One thing that bugged me about CS3's previews is the hit to saturation when applying certain artifact reducing tools primarily in the Detail panel.

Viewing even a 6MP image on a 21in. display at 100% in ACR couldn't give an overall indication of saturation levels viewed in Photoshop. I had to keep going back into ACR and increase saturation to get what I wanted in Photoshop. A big time waister when editing and processing 1000's of Raws.

http://tv.adobe.com/watch/photoshop-cs5-feature-tour/new-camera-raw-features-in-cs5/

Also since I was forced to upgrade my Mac because my 2004 G5 iMac died, it just makes sense to take advantage of all the improved horsepower and Ram.