Is anyone using Photoshop CC? $9.99 per month for photographers is actually pretty attractive. Apparently you get Photoshop, Lightroom, and more. Are there any problems with plugins, I wonder?
This has been hashed over a lot on this forum. Yes many are using PS CC, in fact the majority of LR users probably are, some for very good reasons.
Call me curmudgeonly, but I've chosen not to invest in PS CC for four reasons:
1. I don't believe one should be perpetually tied to renting Adobe software to work on their photographs. IOW, I fundamentally disagree with Adobe's business model for PS as it relates to photographers like myself who choose not to write off expenses against income.
2. Call me cheap, but for the amount I use PS, at $120/yr, it's not worth it (see #3 for e.g.).
3. Except for merging photos (panos and focus-stacking which I might do once a year) I don't have any need for PS CC as LR (and PSCS4) can do all I need it to do. In fact, based on my experience teaching numerous workshops and teaching LR at a local college, I believe this to be true for most photographers. There is caché in describing how one can jump back and forth between LR and PS, but when I've talked to photographers in depth about it, I learn that they went to PS because they didn't know LR could do what they wanted. This is particularly true for things people think they need PS Layers for: differential sharpening (increasing and decreasing), introducing colour washes, changing mid-tone contrast, etc. - all of which can be done in LR with individual or combined adjustment brushes and grad masks.
It's not that I'm unfamiliar with or intimidated by PS - I've been using PS since the late-1990s - it's just that PS is now superfluous to my needs. I am a strong believer in the KISS method and will endeavour to do the best with what I've got before talking myself into buying/using yet another app or plugin.
4. I'm not fond of working with bloated PSD files. My raw files are in the 44Mb range - light and responsive in LR; open one in PS and I'm over 200Mb, and it's not too long before I'm pushing 1Gb where things drag. I could invest 2 grand in a new system, but instead have invested my time into more thoroughly learning LR. I've been around enough photographers who get off on throwing around big file size, GHz and Gb numbers. Not me. Again, KISS.
As long as LR is stand alone, I will use it and keep my $120/year for the 25 or more years I have left in me.