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Author Topic: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm  (Read 53242 times)

theguywitha645d

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #80 on: May 16, 2013, 01:34:08 pm »

This is really funny.

Folks want a perpetual license? Try running the first Photoshop on Mac OSX. Sure the license states you can use this as long as you want, but I am not thinking that that is going to be the practice, not unless you are running MS-DOS.

As far as Lightroom. Personally, it is simply a beefed up Photoshop Elements. Pay your hundred bucks once and a while and upgrade. Go to Aperture. It does not really matter. Photoshop is really the tool for photographers.

What I am more concerned with is the expense of the CC model. For individuals, it is really expensive and your work becomes useless once the license expires. For large organizations, the model will be attractive. As a person that uses many of Adobe's applications, I might just have to start looking at alternatives, but it will be hard. With the Creative Cloud, Adobe becomes a service. Now it is whether I can afford the service.
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Dave Millier

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From a lightroom perspective
« Reply #81 on: May 18, 2013, 05:51:11 am »

I'm not a photoshop user (though I have an ancient copy somewhere and an ancient copy of Elements and even LE) but I am a Lightroom user.  Lightroom has always been a fascinating product, combining what previously required multiple programs into one with a consistent UI and introducing an end to end non destructive workflow.

Great idea, but it came with one price:  if you buy into this approach, you give up all those in-between generations of tiffs you used to have wirth conventional editors. This has always been touted as a strength of LR, a great saving in storage and file management, and rightly so.

But it also brings the "eggs-in-one-basket" syndrome. Lightroom users basically have the original unprocessed raw files plus a database with a record of all the processing done on those raws (and all the keywording and the like). They don't actually have any physical edited files.  And there is no reason why they should: the whole ethos of Lightroom is non-destructive editing of the original raw with no need for any work-in-progress RGB renderings.  Your edits are simple a sequence of commands stored in a database which are run on the fly whenever you want to render and image into a print (or finished electronic file). This works so smoothly, it makes no sense to use lightroom as though it were photoshop and break this model by keeping "backup" rendered files with all the hassle involved in managing these files.

However, what Adobe have done by introducing this subscription model is break a trust. if you used LR on a large scale you know you are committed to this database driven editing model. You are in trouble if anything happens to LR because all of your work resides as nothing more than a remembered sequence of programming instructions associated with the RAW and only LR can run that program and render the file.  LR users need to have faith in Adobe to preserver this model or they risk losing everything.  And LR users are now left with the suspicion that Adobe might (probably will) at some point in the future use the same model with LR. And if they do this, it isn't just a case of the cost of software, it's all the hours you have locked up in the stream of commands saved in the LR database.  They will prevent you not just from using the software if you cease to subscribe but also they will deny you access to all your past work. Your work, the work you did with your skill and knowledge and labour. If Lightroom went to subscription it becomes ransomware.

Are you prepared to entrust 10000, 50000 or whatever images and all the work that went into this to Adobe's goodwill?  Are you going to go on increasing the size of that catalogue knowing what potentially be on the horizon? To my mind, the Photoshop subscription effectively kills the trust in Adobe and that kills Lighroom here and now as a viable product because, painful at it would be to bail at this point, I know that every single extra edit I make is increasing the hold they potentially have over me in the future.  This is a real shame because after initial scepticism, I have grown to like Lightroom a lot and have completely abandoned Capture One and Bibble and Picture Window Pro and the DAM product and the sharpening tools and the noise reduction programs and all the other software I had cobbled together into an intricate workflow.

It will be a blow to have to return to that kind of arrangement but to my mind a subscription model for Lightroom is functionally equivalent to losing your LR catalogue to a kidnapper: stop paying forever and you are left with years of unprocessed RAWs and nothing else.  I don't want my images to be under the control of a corporation who doesn't care about my images or me, I want them to be under my exclusive control because I do care.

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kencameron

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Re: From a lightroom perspective
« Reply #82 on: May 18, 2013, 08:15:53 am »

I'm not a photoshop user...what Adobe have done by introducing this subscription model is break a trust...you are in trouble if anything happens to LR...LR users need to have faith in Adobe to preserver this model or they risk losing everything...to my mind, the Photoshop subscription effectively kills the trust in Adobe and that kills Lighroom here and now...I know that every single extra edit I make is increasing the hold they potentially have over me in the future...(and so on).

I must be missing something here. This line of talk seems melodramatic - if you don't use Photoshop. I am beginning to believe in mutating memes.

Like you, I am a Lightroom user, with, in my case, a few trips outside, mostly to plugins and specialist image processing software but also very occasionally, to Photoshop. I think it unlikely that Adobe will go to subscription only for Lightroom, because I trust them - to act out of self-interest. If I am wrong about that, I will have to consider my options. At that point I won't have lost anything. I will have access to the work I have done using the software I have done it with. I do revisit past work occasionally, but how much time does anyone have do that?

Future hardware and OS changes may be a problem, but not one caused by Adobe's changes to date or likely to be much increased by any future changes made by Adobe - they are already a historic and prospective problem resulting from the rapid rate of change in IT generally.

I expect there will be plenty of interesting options for me to choose between if I decide to abandon Lightroom, and plenty of strategies for jumping ship while minimizing losses.  And that assumes I haven't already jumped ship because my existing setup has been surpassed by other software - as happened when when I moved to Lightroom a few years ago.

This is all a real issue at the moment for Photoshop users and they have my sympathy and best wishes in influencing Adobe to modify their strategy or some of Adobe's best and brightest to do a new product as per Schewe's thread, but for Lightoom users - I should be so lucky as to have nothing worse to worry about, inside or outside photography.

« Last Edit: May 18, 2013, 08:32:33 am by kencameron »
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markd61

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #83 on: May 19, 2013, 06:05:40 pm »

I have heard a lot of anger and outrage from people across the net but almost entirely from non-pros.
I understand the annoyance at change and the uncertainty of the new model but as a pro myself this is a very trivial issue. I pay way more for  other subscriptions that do not make me any money at all.
If, for a reasonable sum of less than $100 a month I can make my solid, upper-middle-class living at photography I am not going to start complaining. I annually pay the state of California $800 for the privilege of having a corporation in this state. I pay my landlord $1500 a month for a studio that allows me to make many times that sum by not having to meet clients at Starbucks and shoot in the park. I pay for an internet connection fee that allows me to send and receive thousands of image files per month (thus saving my clients time, money and sales tax). And I pay ~$250 a month for several cell phones for my staff and myself that enable us to make more money than being limited to land lines and voicemail.

For me it is not an issue. I already lease SW from two other providers and have NEVER had an issues of connectivity or usability. In addition, updates and bug fixes arrive as they are developed and not at some special time when I then have to pay a lump sum for a number of bug fixes that I should have gotten much earlier.

But the storm of criticism of Adobe aside, the real test of whether they did the right thing for themselves and the shareholders is what happens to their earnings.

The fact is that whenever Adobe has introduced an upgrade a storm of protest erupts about the arrogance/greed of Adobe in asking $200 for the upgrade. This is always followed by a stream of indignant proclamations of  imminent departure from all things Adobe and the switching to (insert feeble cr@pware name here) and grave pronouncements of Adobe's demise.
But it never really happens.

Everybody moans about ethics and morality and the obligations of Adobe to its user base. I find it a little ironic that this same (self serving) metric is not applied to the other businesses in our country that are far more rapacious and indifferent to their workers and customers than Adobe has ever been. And this self righteous posturing is for a policy that affects their HOBBY?
When I hear about the steps all of you are taking to improve the lot of citizens and workers in this country and the world (I see you in your Bangladeshi shirt from Kohl's) then I might have a bit more sympathy for your hurt feelings.

« Last Edit: May 19, 2013, 06:08:58 pm by markd61 »
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Isaac

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Re: From a lightroom perspective
« Reply #84 on: May 19, 2013, 08:51:55 pm »

But it also brings the "eggs-in-one-basket" syndrome. Lightroom users basically have the original unprocessed raw files plus a database with a record of all the processing done on those raws (and all the keywording and the like). They don't actually have any physical edited files. ...

I don't want my images to be under the control of a corporation who doesn't care about my images or me, I want them to be under my exclusive control because I do care.

Me neither - so I have a half-dozen export presets which export jpegs at different sizes and degrees of output sharpening; and tiff without output sharpening, using different color spaces - and I use those export presets to create independent archive files.

(Of course, I also archive the usual Lightroom files.)
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stevesanacore

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Re: From a lightroom perspective
« Reply #85 on: May 19, 2013, 10:00:54 pm »


But it also brings the "eggs-in-one-basket" syndrome. Lightroom users basically have the original unprocessed raw files plus a database with a record of all the processing done on those raws (and all the keywording and the like). They don't actually have any physical edited files. 

I'm not sure who you speak for but I have every one of my final choices of all my shoots rendered as DNG, TIFF, and jpegs in many places. I'd be a bit nervous only keeping the raw files around which at some point may be obsolete with no software to render them. I've been using Tiff and jpegs since 1990 where RAW file specs change every year with every new camera release.
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Dave Millier

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #86 on: May 20, 2013, 03:37:22 am »

Of course it makes sense to keep "spare tifs" around just in case, but for me the only reason I chose to use LR at all was to avoid all that. End to end workflow within a single program with non destructive editing, nice and neat and tidy. And this is the way the benefits of the program are often promoted, not least by LR gurus.  Pros may have a very different mindset, of course as they have a livelihood to preserve.
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #87 on: May 20, 2013, 06:55:32 am »

I have heard a lot of anger and outrage from people across the net but almost entirely from non-pros.

I don't think that this is correct. There is also a huge number of pro freelance designers who are at least as mad as amateur photographers.

The gap is no between pro and non pro, the gap is between corporate and non corporate.

Cheers,
Bernard

john beardsworth

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #88 on: May 20, 2013, 07:34:19 am »

I have heard a lot of anger and outrage from people across the net but almost entirely from non-pros.
I don't think that this is correct. There is also a huge number of pro freelance designers who are at least as mad as amateur photographers.
The gap is no between pro and non pro, the gap is between corporate and non corporate.
I agree - "non-pros" are often professionals in their own field and shouldn't be demeaned.

When I hear about the steps all of you are taking to improve the lot of citizens and workers in this country and the world (I see you in your Bangladeshi shirt from Kohl's) then I might have a bit more sympathy for your hurt feelings.
Maybe stick to discussing the point rather implying others are hypocrites on evidence little better than your own prejudices, and dress sense?
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Manoli

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #89 on: May 20, 2013, 07:46:29 am »

Maybe stick to discussing the point rather implying others are hypocrites on evidence little better than your own prejudices, and dress sense?

+1
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jjj

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #90 on: May 20, 2013, 08:41:21 am »

Isaac, you are right about the entertainment possibilities.
However, in the old days the user interface was clear and simple, programs were lean and fast, and most importantly, they worked.
But they were lean simply because they did very little compared to modern software. Heck my phone can do stuff my first computer would be incapable of and does so quickly and easily too.
Editing images [which is what us lot on here do] is way easier, a lot more powerful and faster than it ever has been in the past.

Your argument is like saying the first calculators were better as they fewer buttons than later more useful/powerful calculators.
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David S

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #91 on: May 20, 2013, 09:23:06 am »

Quote:
"I have heard a lot of anger and outrage from people across the net but almost entirely from non-pros.
I understand the annoyance at change and the uncertainty of the new model but as a pro myself this is a very trivial issue. I pay way more for  other subscriptions that do not make me any money at all.
If, for a reasonable sum of less than $100 a month I can make my solid, upper-middle-class living at photography I am not going to start complaining. I annually pay the state of California $800 for the privilege of having a corporation in this state. I pay my landlord $1500 a month for a studio that allows me to make many times that sum by not having to meet clients at Starbucks and shoot in the park. I pay for an internet connection fee that allows me to send and receive thousands of image files per month (thus saving my clients time, money and sales tax). And I pay ~$250 a month for several cell phones for my staff and myself that enable us to make more money than being limited to land lines and voicemail."



Sounds fine for the moment but you will loose access to your life's work once you retire and decide to stop paying rent for your office, programs etc.

Dave S
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Rhossydd

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #92 on: May 20, 2013, 10:22:27 am »

Sounds fine for the moment but you will loose access to your life's work once you retire and decide to stop paying rent for your office, programs etc.
Maybe people should remember that it will be (is) possible just subscribe for a month at a time to any of the packages. A month should be enough to reformat old work if necessary.
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Isaac

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #93 on: May 20, 2013, 12:29:19 pm »

Of course it makes sense to keep "spare tifs" around just in case, but for me the only reason I chose to use LR at all was to avoid all that. End to end workflow within a single program with non destructive editing, nice and neat and tidy.

End-to-end workflow which, if you want an independent archive, includes export in suitable image formats. Your choice.
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VidJa

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #94 on: May 20, 2013, 05:57:33 pm »

This whole discussion goes beyond the fact the Adobe is just another company. As we have seen in the past: if it doesn't work, nobody will buy it. If it does... fine.
For pro guys CC will just be an expense. For enthousiasts as myself...I either keep using LR4, maybe 5 and CS6 for the next 5 years or I will switch to an alternative in time. There is no pressure, just time...time to explore new paths.

The same happened with word processors. At work I have Office 2013. At home I still have Office 2003 that came  with a long gone PC, supplemented with Libre Office. I run Windows 7 and Ubuntu linux next to each other and I'm spending more and more time in linux. There will be a point when joe average tells the boss to get rid of the old monoliths for his day to day work if the replacing software delivers more than the corporate choice in terms of productivity. That point may be far away for Adobe, but their attitude already unleached so many alternatives than one of them is bound to surpass the whole CC thing. Which one and when remains unforeseen. The only alternative for Adobe is to become that alternative. My conclusion. They don't know it yet, but they jus gave themselve a big reason to accelerate their own development.

we will see......
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dreed

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #95 on: May 21, 2013, 06:40:56 am »

Quote:
"I have heard a lot of anger and outrage from people across the net but almost entirely from non-pros.
I understand the annoyance at change and the uncertainty of the new model but as a pro myself this is a very trivial issue. I pay way more for  other subscriptions that do not make me any money at all.
If, for a reasonable sum of less than $100 a month I can make my solid, upper-middle-class living at photography I am not going to start complaining. I annually pay the state of California $800 for the privilege of having a corporation in this state. I pay my landlord $1500 a month for a studio that allows me to make many times that sum by not having to meet clients at Starbucks and shoot in the park. I pay for an internet connection fee that allows me to send and receive thousands of image files per month (thus saving my clients time, money and sales tax). And I pay ~$250 a month for several cell phones for my staff and myself that enable us to make more money than being limited to land lines and voicemail."

I don't think anyone is arguing about the fact that business will not really notice this change - or perhaps they will but not in a detrimental manner.
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jjj

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #96 on: May 21, 2013, 06:45:40 am »

Maybe people should remember that it will be (is) possible just subscribe for a month at a time to any of the packages. A month should be enough to reformat old work if necessary.
Reprocessing 40-50 years work in a month would be quite a challenge. No to mention the huge amount of HD space you'd suddenly need. And are you really never going to any creative work again just because you've retired?
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #97 on: May 21, 2013, 11:48:02 am »

I agree - "non-pros" are often professionals in their own field and shouldn't be demeaned.

John,

This is not what I meant. I meant pro users of Creative suite who do not belong to a corporation. In other words self-employed in the domain of graphic design and relying entirely on CS for their current work.

Cheers,
Bernard

Don Libby

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #98 on: May 21, 2013, 12:11:36 pm »

 Not feeling too good the past couple days has left me with little to do other than surf the web in search of answers.  I've read hundreds of posts which is slightly 55-45 (very unofficial on my part) against joining the cloud.  I did a very unofficial tabulation of those who were violently against what Adobe has done and those who have joined who seemed to offer rational reasons why they did it.

To be true no one like change.  I have a hard time at times accepting change.  However change can be in some cases a good thing.  In the end it's a very subjective thing that only the actual person making/accepting the change can offer.

I've been using Photoshop since about version 2 many many years ago.  I remember a friend of mine who had bought the program offering me a chance to try it free (okay it was a bootleg copy).   I remember I felt like a deer caught in the headlights.  Then shortly afterwards I fully embraced it and bought a copy for myself.  Chance can hurt at times.

Fast-forward a decade or two.  Last year I spent close to $500 to upgrade to CS6 and Pro Show Producer.  I had for several years thought of buying into the entire suite however the price was just too tight. 

Fast-forward to yesterday.  I logged onto my Adobe account and found that since I had a registered copy of CS6 I was eligible to join the Cloud at $19.99 per month (first 12-months) and enjoy the entire cloud.  (Just so that you know, Adobe is also offering this same price to any NAPP members).

So I joined.  The first thing I noticed is that I downloaded the latest upgrade directly to my computer for both CS6 and Premier Pro.  Other thing I noticed was a program that will save me countless steps (and one I was thinking about buying) Adobe Acrobat.  So last year I spent $473.00 in upgrades while this next year will cost me $261.72 ($19.99/mo plus $1.82/mo tax).  I realize and fully expect the next 12-months will increase, however I will also have 19-products to pick and choose from that will help me grow.

Choosing the Cloud was what I feel a good business decision as Adobe will never reverse their decision and I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face.  There's more to the decision and I just hit the highlights.

In short I feel it was the logical thing to do for me.

Don

I also don't worry about PSD files as all my files are either the original RAW or saved as Tiff.

kers

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Re: The Adobe Creative Cloud Storm
« Reply #99 on: May 21, 2013, 02:32:53 pm »

"
So I joined.  The first thing I noticed is that I downloaded the latest upgrade directly to my computer for both CS6 and Premier Pro.  Other thing I noticed was a program that will save me countless steps (and one I was thinking about buying) Adobe Acrobat.  So last year I spent $473.00 in upgrades while this next year will cost me $261.72 ($19.99/mo plus $1.82/mo tax).  I realize and fully expect the next 12-months will increase, however I will also have 19-products to pick and choose from that will help me grow.
....
I also don't worry about PSD files as all my files are either the original RAW or saved as Tiff.

So you are not dependent on Photoshop since you save everything as Raw or tiff.. But if you are dependent ..? the next year may cost you 360 $ (?) ; Adobe now has clearly shown you do not know what will come next...
One of the problems with photoshop is that it is so (!) dominating there is no alternative.. If the company that makes it decides to change the price policy a lot of people are affected and become restless...
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