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This link crashes my iPad browser. It crashed two different browsers.

Adobe is crazy.
I've been using Elements 4 for probably 10 years now and will continue to use it as long as possible.

This is similar to Comcast with their digital box and other ridiculous rentals. When they need a little extra cash they just increase the monthly rate by 25 cents.

Once you sign on to a policy like this they have you by the throat.

But if you own a version of the software they have to convince YOU there is a reason to upgrade.

As others here have posted in a way this is good as we'll see somemore competition to Photoshop very shortly.

"For example Photoshop is regularly updated to enable it to process files from new cameras in Camera RAW. Presumably these updates will no longer be available for outright owners. And that will bite very soon"Presumably, Adobe Camera Raw updates will be available for CS6 for a yet-to-be-determined period of time. See: Adobe Camera Raw 8 support for Photoshop CC and Photoshop CS6

...Jerry

btw: I'm not trying to defend this new pricing policy 'cuz I still think it sucks.

Here is the Pixelmator blog in reaction to Photoshop CC, as was mentioned earlier in this thread. Pixelmator will also be getting a free major upgrade tomorrow for existing users.
Unfortunately it is only available on the mac but if you own a mac, you can't go wrong at $14.99.

http://www.pixelmator.com/blog/2013/05/07/cloudiness/

EDIT: the app is on sale at $14.99 for a limited time, regular price is $59.99.

Nothing like an angry Hitler video to brighten the day...

In regards to the above comment about cracking, I'm sure that's true. I'm also just as sure that the current situation where if you Google After Effects, you find as many cracked versions as legitimate sales outlets, helped fuel this decision to go to the cloud.

GREAT captions. "Don't worry Anna. Photoshop's only $20 a month." Didn't see that coming.

What an amazing movie, and the fact that this five-minute segment lives on in so many creative ways is testament to the power of the scene and the acting. The guy playing Adolf (Bruno Ganz) really deserves a medal.

But if you own a version of the software they have to convince YOU there is a reason to upgrade.

Think how much they can save now that they won't need so many people in the marketing department!

;-)

">https://www.sonymcs.com/

This link crashes my iPad browser. It crashed two different browsers."


What browsers are you using? I just tried it again and no crash here.

I am using Internet Explorer 9.

Works ok here on Seamonkey 2.17.1, but it's dog-slow. Takes forever to load, and then the animations run very jerky.

OK, I just can't see it on my iPad. Must be Flash based and not HTML5. No wonder it runs so slow!

My first thought when I heard the story was "great way to force people to upgrade." Think of it: no one can really skip an upgrade because you have to keep subscribing. No more "lost" revenue.

My best marketing guess is that they're taking a carefully calculated risk: gain more revenue from subscriptions than you're losing from defections and people not upgrading every cycle.

My second thought after seeing the story was: "I wonder what the alternatives are..."

Today, before hearing the story I didn't give CS6 a thought, except when I was using it. Now, I'm looking for alternatives to it. Weird.

For those of us who are also photographers, you can always batch convert your camera RAW files to DNG format:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=106&platform=Windows

What is particularly frustrating to me is that I updated to Photoshop CS6 especially to avoid having to do this with my GH3. Yes I can continue to work with my GH3 RAW files with my current version of Photoshop, but when it comes time to upgrade my camera in a year or two, there is a good chance I will be looking at either leaving Photoshop, or having to batch convert from whatever that format is to DNG. That is unless maybe something like installing a current version of Photoshop Elements also writes the new camera profiles. I just hate all of this silliness. You sell something to somebody. They commit a huge amount of time into learning your workflow. They buy many (if not all) of the upgrades. Then you treat them like this!? Very maddening!

Works just fine with IE10.
You're right, Sony have had cloud based offerings for a long time.
Increasingly even cameras are becoming cloud aware via WiFi etc.

Bob.

A big factor in this all is how much the people on the big projects and those on the little projects have been using the same tools. A reasonable price for someone doing a hit TV show or a large scale movie project is something entirely different from what someone doing local ads or Church videos might be. Lately the large and small scale projects have been using the same tools. Maybe this is a sign that that era is coming to an end.

As SCS watches this unfold, I really hope they take this as an opportunity to get more customers as people leave Adobe, and not a model that they would follow and try to emulate.

Laurence wrote - "What is the best alternative to Photoshop? I really, really like Photoshop, but I'm not going to do a subscription. What are my alternatives?"

This is in response to a non-cloud alternative.

I know some have addressed this here and while it may not stack up to Photoshop for certain extras or brand cache), I've been using Coral PhotoPaint since about 1997 - I now have it as part of Corel's X5 Graphics Suite (latest suite is X6) -- far more affordable than Adobe product/suites). PhotoPaint is NOT to be confused with Corel PhotoPaint which is a far more basic and standalone prog.

I used to be a professional graphics and display designer with design college training, so I'm pretty picky. I've called PhotoPaint my "poor man's Photoshop" for I simply could never afford Adobe suites in my later life and some may have a snobbish attitude about it, but trust me, you can do a lot with it. I've used it for 16+ years.

I took courses in PhotoShop and Illustrator back then and had an academic copy of the latter until its 16-bit build no longer worked on Windows 7.

And yes, PhotoPaint does open and save in Photoshop formats. And all Photoshop plugin formats work with it also.

~ Philip

http://www.corel.com/corel/category.jsp?cat=cat4130083&rootCat=cat3610091 Corel Products Trial Download Page (X6 is latest Graphics Suite including PhotoPaint and Draw)[/link]

I live in regional Australia, where communications still consist of two tin cans and a piece of string. Internet access is only practical via one National telco who, naturally, practices robbery without violence when setting their prices. The service is slow and the data allocation is very expensive (I access it via wireless).

For me, anything cloud-based is a no-no. Apart from the horrible slowness of the service, the continual upload of data or download of products just eats my monthly data allowance - Vegas is guilty of this too (I shudder when I read that a new version of Vegas has issues because I know that this will mean countless downloads of updates intended to fix those issues.) As each product goes over to the cloud I will find myself clinging to older, PC based, editions of the software until they simply can't be used due to obsolescence. Then I'm stuffed. I have no idea what I will do.

One thing I have done over the years, in response to Adobe's vile practice of charging all users outside of the USA a premium price (they've never heard of the Global Economy and currency exchange rates, apparently), is to move to other products. The only Adobe product I now use is Photoshop Elements and I'm currently researching alternatives to that as well.

I have always believed that Adobe are corporate scoundrels and this new ploy simply reinforces that opinion.

PaintShop? Paint.NET?

Depends on what and how deep you're doing things.

Doing a project with one of those programs is kind of like hitting the freeway on a bicycle.

So far I have avoided Adobe like the plague for 20 years of professional work. I have been using Paint Shop Pro from the old JASC days, now using Corel Paintshop Pro X5. Very reasonably priced, very powerful, very easy to use.

For vector work I always use Xara Design Pro. This program is a real sleeper. Far fewer mouse clicks than anthing in Adobe and also very powerful. It can also import and export just about any format you need to work in.

So I'll just stay with those, thanks and never need to go with Adobe's new scheme.

For me the comparison between Paintshop Pro and Photoshop is equivalent to comparing Vegas to Permiere/Edius/FCP.

My son, a long time Vegas user like me, is just starting to learn After Effects and he called me last night and said "Gee dad, I'm getting into After Effects now and all I think about is how much easier and faster it is to do the same things in Vegas (and at a fraction of the cost). I agree completely!
David
imaginACTION

gimp - very robust and powerful.

http://www.gimp.org/

> "I have always believed that Adobe are corporate scoundrels and this new ploy simply reinforces that opinion."

I'm not looking to defend Adobe but let's give some credit where credit is due:

When Adobe determined that it was too expensive to keep their licensing servers up for customers who were still using Adobe CS2 they created a version of CS2 that did not require server activation and gave everyone a new license that was permanent as in, installing all you want with no activation limitations!

This resulted in a whole "Adobe is giving away CS2" craze but as it turns out, they trusted that only current CS2 customers were allowed to legally download and install CS2 for free but anyone could actually do it. (So one alternative to Photoshop that you can own with no activation is actually Photoshop CS2)

That doesn't sound to me like a company that is looking to screw it's customers. On the contrary, that was an unheard of kind gesture that more companies should follow (i.e., remove activation from older versions of software they no longer support)

~jr