In the interest of fairness.

[tom60634]

I would like to open this topic to advocates of the adobe cloud subscription service.

It would be nice if they restricted their comments to the benefits that would be available to users, particularly amateurs and hobbyists.

It's becoming much too hard to sift through the negative and patently off topic comments to find believable positive comments.

Thanks in advance for any and all thoughtful, on topic comments.

[craigwashburn]

Having been busy working I only just learned about Adobe's switching to CC. 

I haven't had a chance to read all the sturm and drang associated, but we made the decision to use the subscription model in January.

Reasons were:
- Always have latest version.  When we spent a good amount to upgrade to CS5.5, 6 came out a few weeks later. 

- We were using a Creative Suite Design Standard whose upgrade path dated back a decade.  But, we only really use Photoshop and Acrobat now.  You can only upgrade entire creative suites and not the individual pieces, and these upgrades were relatively expensive. 

- The $20 / mo for an annual sign up fits fine into our cash flow and was less than the effective monthly cost of previous occasional upgrades.  Given Adobe's unpredictable but ever increasing upgrade prices, it's easier to plan and work into our bottom line.


I can see for hobbyists and non-business users that rarely upgraded, monthly fees of any amount seem onerous.  Maybe they will upgrade Elements to appeal to advanced amateurs who want things like 16 bit support but don't need all the heavy retouching and advanced processing that PS can do.

[Schewe]

One benefit to CC is if you are working in a mixed platform environment, you can use CC on both a Mac and a Windows machine with the same license. Perpetual licenses were platform specific.

[craigwashburn]

One benefit to CC is if you are working in a mixed platform environment, you can use CC on both a Mac and a Windows machine with the same license. Perpetual licenses were platform specific.

The was also on our minds.   I also liked that the CC is the Extended version of PS.  I had reservations of paying the extra cost before, but I have used some of the features now that we have them.  The CS6 Timeline in particular is very useful for simple and fast video editing.

[bill t.]

Between my wife and I we use PS, Illustrator, Premier, and After Effects, and will probably start to use a few smaller CC apps.  Quite frankly, for $50 a month I'm quite a bit of money ahead.

I have taken the opportunity over the last few days to evaluate alternatives, but really only to see where Adobe truly is in relation to its competition.  Conclusion: Adobe is for the most part way ahead of anybody else.  The only possible exception being superior raw conversion results in Photo Ninja, which unfortunately lacks several practical workflow bells and whistles in LR.

[RFPhotography]

Between my wife and I we use PS, Illustrator, Premier, and After Effects, and will probably start to use a few smaller CC apps.  Quite frankly, for $50 a month I'm quite a bit of money ahead.

I have taken the opportunity over the last few days to evaluate alternatives, but really only to see where Adobe truly is in relation to its competition.  Conclusion: Adobe is for the most part way ahead of anybody else.  The only possible exception being superior raw conversion results in Photo Ninja, which unfortunately lacks several practical workflow bells and whistles in LR.

For users of multiple products in the Creative Suite, I think you've hit on a key point, Bill.  The monthly subscription will likely end up being less expensive than upgrading all of the components a user may have.

As far as RAW processing, Raw Therapee is very powerful, has a good UI and is free.

[Deardorff]

Slow connections make it untenable.

[Johnny_Johnson]

Slow connections make it untenable.

How so?

[Garnick]

As far as RAW processing, Raw Therapee is very powerful, has a good UI and is free.

I've just downloaded and installed RT, Mac 10.7.5.  Neither the Command/Q nor the menu/Quit item will work.  The only way I can quit the qpp is to Force Quit.  Seems rather strange, any ideas?

Gary

[Rhossydd]

How so?

Just consider how long it would take to download the Photoshop package on dial up ?
And if you wanted the full suite ?

Not everyone has fibre broadband and I haven't seen any mention of Adobe offering to send out DVDs of CC to be authenticated online for subscribers.

[designpartners]

Just consider how long it would take to download the Photoshop package on dial up ?
And if you wanted the full suite ?

Not everyone has fibre broadband and I haven't seen any mention of Adobe offering to send out DVDs of CC to be authenticated online for subscribers.

to be fair, and keep things positive, it may not suit everyone, but there's always an option.. internet cafe, friends house, work.. there are options. I know you may have to leave your house to do it but it's not too unlike going to a shop.

I've commented on another post about the negatives facing our company with this decision, but, me as an amateur photog, who loves technology, loves software, spends way way too much on camera body's, lenses, flashes & grip. With DSLR Video now mainstream on most cameras, what CC give me for reasonably small money each month (in comparison to what I spend on hardware camera gear).. the possibility of what can be done really are quite spectacular. I really really would never have spent €2.5k on the master collection. I probably won't use everything in there, but it's really nice to know you can

[Rhossydd]

but there's always an option.. internet cafe, friends house, work.. there are options. I know you may have to leave your house to do it but it's not too unlike going to a shop.

The point is that people who can't get decent broadband often haven't easy access to a high speed connection at all. Many internet cafes won't allow you to install software, so Adobe's downloader may not be possible to install. Friends may be in similar situation and you may work from home. Just read what the poster said in another thread;

No chance of a faster connection in the rural area we live in. More people live in a decent sized city Apartment building than our entire county. ...

Adobe should at least offer something to potential users that don't have easy access to high speed internet connections. There will be a lot of users that see no 'fairness' in the CC subscription model at all.

[kaelaria]

Which is why you can buy it on physical media from retailers for install.

[Rhossydd]

I haven't read anywhere of the media being sold separately yet. How much are they charging for that ? and how often would(could) you have to buy it again to keep up with new features(bug fixes) you're paying for ?

[Rick Popham]

Which is why you can buy it on physical media from retailers for install.

These are boxed versions that haven't yet sold.  But Adobe isn't producing any more physical copies, so when they're gone it will be download only.  Apparently you can get a disc if you need it, but you'll have to talk to Customer Service.

[kaelaria]

Oops my bad - yep its download only, the retailers are selling a year subscription code only.