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Author Topic: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update  (Read 126891 times)

Simon Garrett

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #380 on: April 20, 2014, 06:23:43 pm »

I don't think your math is correct.  Assuming your dates are correct and $200 per upgrade, that is $600 in 5 years, or $10/month - the same as the CC rate.  HOWEVER, most users do not upgrade every cycle and CC has no exit strategy.

I did a similar sum.  At UK prices, if I upgraded Photoshop every other time when you could do that (say every 3 years) and upgraded Lightroom every time (say every 18 months) it comes to around £308 every 3 years.  The $9.99 package is £8.78 inc tax in the UK, or £316 after 3 years. 

The exit strategy for me is to go back to my CS5, and pay to upgrade my LR to the latest version.  Not pretty, but acceptable, and while I subscribe I have the latest version. 
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richardm33

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #381 on: April 20, 2014, 07:57:00 pm »

I don't think your math is correct.  Assuming your dates are correct and $200 per upgrade, that is $600 in 5 years, or $10/month - the same as the CC rate.  HOWEVER, most users do not upgrade every cycle and CC has no exit strategy.

You can certainly cherry pick the numbers to give a favorable or unfavorable result.  For one thing you can not just buy 3 upgrades without first owning a full version so that has to be part of the cost.

As I said I was comparing the cost of a single copy of CS6 over it's typical life (2 years).  If you were to upgrade CS6 to 'CS7' your cost would be (with upgrade) about $900 with a useful life of about 4 years which will require 7.5 years to break even.  Although that combination would result in a better feature set at the end. Actually, it is a little worse since by paying upfront the cost is based on the NFV which would include any ROI you might experience if you bought the subscription.

Of course, there is an exit strategy.  Stop paying the fee!  What happens when you stop paying your electric bill?
« Last Edit: April 20, 2014, 08:04:04 pm by richardm33 »
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BrianWJH

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #382 on: April 20, 2014, 08:42:00 pm »

Of course, there is an exit strategy.  Stop paying the fee!
I think the OP was referring to the fact that once on the subscription treadmill any use of new cc enhancements or functionality immediately makes those new enhancements or functionality incompatible with previous Creative Suite versions.

Brian.
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richardm33

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #383 on: April 20, 2014, 10:51:50 pm »

I think the OP was referring to the fact that once on the subscription treadmill any use of new cc enhancements or functionality immediately makes those new enhancements or functionality incompatible with previous Creative Suite versions.

Brian.

Hasn't that always been true.  If I revert to an older version of a software program, the features of the new version will be unavailable. But in the case of Photoshop the file will still be able to be opened and editable and the changes previously made will be intact assuming the file was flattened.

When people use phrases like 'subscription treadmill' it suggests a bias not supported by the facts.
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ButchM

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #384 on: April 20, 2014, 11:20:02 pm »

You can certainly cherry pick the numbers to give a favorable or unfavorable result.  For one thing you can not just buy 3 upgrades without first owning a full version so that has to be part of the cost.

As I said I was comparing the cost of a single copy of CS6 over it's typical life (2 years).  If you were to upgrade CS6 to 'CS7' your cost would be (with upgrade) about $900 with a useful life of about 4 years which will require 7.5 years to break even.  Although that combination would result in a better feature set at the end. Actually, it is a little worse since by paying upfront the cost is based on the NFV which would include any ROI you might experience if you bought the subscription.

Of course, there is an exit strategy.  Stop paying the fee!  What happens when you stop paying your electric bill?

Seems cherry picking is common.

Someone is overlooking one extremely important and valuable factor. With a perpetual license the user had an asset. Conversely, a CC license is a liability. The perpetual license could be legally sold and transferred to another user. So we need to go back and do the calculations over factoring in those considerations instead of an arbitrary apples to apples analogy.

While it may be true that if you amortize the purchase cost of a CS license directly without allowing for it being an asset because it still has a marketable value, whereby the registered owner of the license could recoup some of the initial investment. With a CC license ... not so much. A CC license, after the fact, has no real value whatsoever ... at least Nat Geo lets you keep the copies of the magazines you purchased. They do go up in value over time if you take care of them.
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bernie west

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #385 on: April 21, 2014, 01:16:47 am »

One of my worries/concerns is that over time lightroom has increasingly replaced the need for certain aspects of photoshop.  Throw the Nik plugins in (and potentially others), and photoshop becomes even less important.  But for absolute maximum flexibility and control, it makes sense to still have photoshop for the time being.  The worry is that say in five years time if lightroom (+/- Nik) can do pretty much everything a photographer needs, then there's no need to keep subscribing to photoshop.  But then I'll have potentially 5 years of photoshop work that will no longer be accessible in a .psd style format.  I'm not sure how true this feeling is, but I feel like I need to either hitch myself to solely lightroom (+ plugins) now, or commit to many long years of lightroom + photoshop.
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chez

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #386 on: April 21, 2014, 07:55:22 am »

Once you started using the proprietary Adobe formats, you were locked in. If you stay with CS6...what happens in say 5 years, 10 years when you cannot find any hw or sw to run your obsoleted software? Do people really think they can run CS6 forever? I think not.

The day you start using any proprietary formats you are locked in. This is nothing new with CC...only difference is the time to become obsoleted. With CS6, it will be a slow die, with CC it will be the day you stop your subscription.

I personally convert all my work to TIF's when I am done processing them. I find I don't need to go back to my images years later and continue processing them.
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john beardsworth

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #387 on: April 21, 2014, 10:51:32 am »

You can certainly cherry pick the numbers to give a favorable or unfavorable result.  For one thing you can not just buy 3 upgrades without first owning a full version so that has to be part of the cost.

No, it doesn't - it's a money that's already been spent, and therefore not relevant to evaluating costs you're currently comparing.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 10:55:18 am by john beardsworth »
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Isaac

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #388 on: April 21, 2014, 11:23:43 am »

But then I'll have potentially 5 years of photoshop work that will no longer be accessible in a .psd style format.

Please accept this as a genuine question rather than point-scoring: Do you actually go back to .psd files made 5 years ago and rework them?
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ButchM

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #389 on: April 21, 2014, 12:05:36 pm »

Please accept this as a genuine question rather than point-scoring: Do you actually go back to .psd files made 5 years ago and rework them?

I can't speak for anyone else ... but yes, I do revise .psd files that go back much more than 5 years quite often. Rarely is it a straight up image file, but rather composite graphic designs for clients that may need updated, adjusted or otherwise edited as time passes. Sometimes we shouldn't assume that we all could or should have identical workflows or concerns.

Just last week, I had a client call and request some changes to the front and back book cover (and dust jacket) I originally designed for him over 10 years ago. The third such revision since the original in 2003 ... the book is going into it's fourth printing and the client wants the new tome to be distinguishable from earlier editions. Such requests may not be as common as most Ps users experience, but it is often enough for me to have genuine concerns.

Over the past year, I have been slowly converting many of these files to TIFF as time and opportunity allow, to be better prepared for moving away from Ps when the time comes that CS6 is no longer functional.
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Isaac

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #390 on: April 21, 2014, 12:26:46 pm »

Sometimes we shouldn't assume that we all could or should have identical workflows or concerns.

Sometimes we should accept that when someone says a genuine question rather than point-scoring, it is a genuine question :-)
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Simon Garrett

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #391 on: April 21, 2014, 12:29:48 pm »

I face a slightly different "locked-in" issue.  For me, most of my masters are not PSD but in Lightroom.  Where I've edited in Photoshop (no more than 5-10% of images), the results are normally tiff. If the Photoshop editing was trivial and easily repeatable - say, a bit of straight forward cloning - then I save to jpeg, as D800 tiffs are huuuuge.  Even after Photoshop, there might be further Lightroom adjustments, so the results are in Adobe-proprietary metadata.  I keep it that way so I can go back and edit some more and, like Isaac, it happens quite often.  If I want an image for a particular purpose I might find something from 5 years ago or more, and almost certainly I'll want to tweak it.  

If ever I face the prospect of not being able to use Lightroom, I'll need a mega-export session to export currently around 65,000 images from Lightroom.  That would probably be to Tif for high-rated stuff, and high-quality jpeg for the rest.  Several days' work for the computer, but computers like that sort of thing!
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ButchM

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #392 on: April 21, 2014, 12:32:55 pm »

Sometimes we should accept that when someone says a genuine question rather than point-scoring, it is a genuine question :-)

Sometimes you shouldn't assume that that portion of my comment wasn't offered solely for your benefit.  ;)
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Isaac

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #393 on: April 21, 2014, 12:36:50 pm »

Ditto ;-)
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Isaac

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #394 on: April 21, 2014, 12:43:02 pm »

If I want an image for a particular purpose I might find something from 5 years ago or more, and almost certainly I'll want to tweak it.

When I think about how much LR (and Dx0 Optics Pro and Capture One Pro) has changed over the last 5 years, I'd be tempted to start-all-over-again from the raw or DNG.

I realize that volume of work is probably the key factor. (Well, volume of work; and making the minimum of changes to work that has already been accepted and used by a client.)
« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 01:20:07 pm by Isaac »
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Chris Kern

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #395 on: April 21, 2014, 06:30:22 pm »

I face a slightly different "locked-in" issue.  For me, most of my masters are not PSD but in Lightroom.  Where I've edited in Photoshop (no more than 5-10% of images), the results are normally tiff. If the Photoshop editing was trivial and easily repeatable - say, a bit of straight forward cloning - then I save to jpeg, as D800 tiffs are huuuuge.  Even after Photoshop, there might be further Lightroom adjustments, so the results are in Adobe-proprietary metadata.  I keep it that way so I can go back and edit some more and, like Isaac, it happens quite often.  If I want an image for a particular purpose I might find something from 5 years ago or more, and almost certainly I'll want to tweak it.

This strike me as a fundamental liability of relying on any software product to manage archival copies.  Eventually, the product will go away and, sometime after that, so will the operating system releases on which the last revision of the product can execute.  I don't think we need to worry about that happening anytime soon with Lightroom, but sooner or later. . . .

It's even worse with physical media.  Some years back, a specialist at the U.S. National Archives described to me the agency's concerns about the preservation of information that was stored on floppy disks, tape cassettes, CDs, etc.—it's a real problem because the physical playback devices necessary to retrieve the data inevitably stop being manufactured as better devices supplant them, and there's a limit to how long it's practical to keep the legacy playback machines alive.  (Keep in mind that these guys routinely think in terms of hundreds of years.)  At least with software, it's always possible to build a new product that will emulate the functionality of an obsolete one at least sufficiently to permit porting legacy data files to a current format.

In that regard, it occurs to me that maybe those concerned about eventually no longer having access to Lightroom should be saving XMP sidecar files since they offer a perpetually readable record (i.e., a bytewise encoding of simple Latin text) describing what Lightroom or some future emulator needs to do to reconstitute the user's edits.  Wouldn't work with Photoshop, of course, because you diddle with the actual pixels when you edit instead of building a list of changes for the software dynamically to apply.
« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 06:36:42 pm by Chris Kern »
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Simon Garrett

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #396 on: April 21, 2014, 07:26:28 pm »

This strike me as a fundamental liability of relying on any software product to manage archival copies...

It's even worse with physical media....

I agree with both points.  I have been looking at archival issues for a museum, and the general advice is to use TIFF or JPEG.  Both are well-established standards, and likely to be pretty long lasting as digital standards go.  But how long is that: decades?  Compare that to written records hundreds or thousands of years old.  And writen records are not stored in a proprietary format you can't read when your CC subscription runs out. 

For physical media, well, who knows?  Even if DVDs are supposed to last decades, I'll bet no one will be using them in in 20 years, let along 200. 

I suppose the answer is likely to be cloud-based, with important material held on multiple independent cloud services.  But someone has to maintain digital storage.  It's not as though you can put it in a cupboard, and be sure anyone can read it in 500 years time. 
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Chris Kern

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #397 on: April 21, 2014, 08:29:01 pm »

I suppose the answer is likely to be cloud-based, with important material held on multiple independent cloud services.  But someone has to maintain digital storage.  It's not as though you can put it in a cupboard, and be sure anyone can read it in 500 years time.  

Yup.  Once you start thinking in terms of multiple hundreds of years, the prospects become ... ahem ... cloudy.  (Sorry.  Couldn't restrain myself.)
« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 09:38:06 pm by Chris Kern »
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bernie west

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #398 on: April 21, 2014, 09:31:43 pm »

Please accept this as a genuine question rather than point-scoring: Do you actually go back to .psd files made 5 years ago and rework them?

Fair question, and your implication is probably right.  I rarely if ever go back to old images.  ;)  Although, in the past "near enough" has been good enough.  But I think you make a good point.  Perhaps I am over thinking that particular aspect.
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Wayland

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Re: Adobe - Creative Cloud Update
« Reply #399 on: May 09, 2014, 05:55:53 pm »

Please accept this as a genuine question rather than point-scoring: Do you actually go back to .psd files made 5 years ago and rework them?

Perfectly fair question.

As has been suggested, I sometimes go back to the raw file and start from scratch. The software has improved of course but so have I.

I'm on a constant learning curve so the work I produce now is more refined than what I was doing five years ago. That includes my Post production work as well so reworking old files can be quite productive at times.

I do however also have some images that I revisit to produce differing versions for different applications and I don't want to go back to the starting block every time that happens.
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