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The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

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Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#61

Every time I see one of these HN threads, I am actually amazed with what Adobe was able to pull off. I'm not surprised that they could do this to pros who were used to a particular workflow. In fact, for some businesses, a subscription may have some benefits. You were probably upgrading regularly anyway, and the only downside is that it's an expense you can't cut back on in a lean year. But there are so many hobbyist…

Because it's objectively non-expensive, compared to the hardware you want (not need) for photography.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#62

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

Whether you need masking or such level of tools is dependent on how you approach photography. You can change your method of taking photos to remove such a need for editing.

Give us a tutorial please. Otherwise this statement makes no sense.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#63

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

Agreed. Lightroom is still a great package. The alternatives are either way less powerful, hard to use (looking at darktable), or cost even more (like Capture One). The AI masking in Lightroom is fantastic. There is almost no need for Photoshop anymore.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#64

Every time I see one of these HN threads, I am actually amazed with what Adobe was able to pull off. I'm not surprised that they could do this to pros who were used to a particular workflow. In fact, for some businesses, a subscription may have some benefits. You were probably upgrading regularly anyway, and the only downside is that it's an expense you can't cut back on in a lean year. But there are so many hobbyist…

I'm not sure how many occasional LR users there were/are. Either it's software someone needs to manage their non-phone photo library plus editing or not. Those type of people are also likely to upgrade every year. So if you compare pricing you need to compare to also upgrading every year. In that case the subscription was pretty close in price.

As far as competitors, there are certainly other editing options. The number of real competitors quickly shrinks if you include DAM + editing. And LR's editing has made huge strides on top of something that was already top notch.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#65

We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors. I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking too…

People absolutely COULD design something better, but if there is a lesson that I have seen replayed across the internet over the last 20 years is that adobe users, only want adobe, they dont want anything else.

They want the shortcuts exactly the same, the screens exactly the same, the outputs exactly the same.

They simply dont accept anything else, it basically needs to be a carbon clone copy to keep them happy, and in that case, why bother writing software, you dont win those users, and there is MANY of them.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#66
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For regular, undiscounted prices the subscription prices were somewhat fair. Regular Photoshop CS5 was $700, or $1000 for the extended version. And $200 to upgrade. Now it's a $300/year subscription. But students really got shafted. You used to get 80-90% student discounts, and could keep using the same version for years. Including keeping the software when you were no longer a student

You're not wrong, but students often have to spend more than $300 per semester (not year) just on textbooks.

Why don't you ask the students how much they love doing that. I'm sure they'll have nothing but nice things to say.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#67
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you need masking or such level of tools is dependent on how you approach photography. You can change your method of taking photos to remove such a need for editing.

How?

A lot of pulitzer prize winners are straight out of a canon 5d jpegs. It’s about composition and using light well. Same as it has always been.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#68
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For regular, undiscounted prices the subscription prices were somewhat fair. Regular Photoshop CS5 was $700, or $1000 for the extended version. And $200 to upgrade. Now it's a $300/year subscription. But students really got shafted. You used to get 80-90% student discounts, and could keep using the same version for years. Including keeping the software when you were no longer a student

You're not wrong, but students often have to spend more than $300 per semester (not year) just on textbooks.

There is a massive amount of criticism around textbook pricing, especially since they include licenses for the software you need to do your homework. Adobe and text book publishers are both inexcusably exploitative.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#69
post #8

If you're a hobbyist needing photo editing software, just use https://www.photopea.com/

Photopea is great but I switched to Pixelmator Pro. I just paid $49.99 one time. It's a clean native app. It doesn't install all these horrors of horror on my system like Photoshop did. It doesn't try to pressure me into using some half baked AI tool. (I mean could you imagine what that must be like being an artist who hates AI and Adobe shoves it in your face?) I can't believe I was paying $40/month for Photoshop for so long. Thankfully I got all my money back and more by shorting Adobe's stock. After spending so many years drinking unicorn blood, no software company deserves to fall more. Everyone who invested in them, hoping to get rich off torturing artists and tax payers, deserves to lose their money too.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#70
lol adobe has fought off these tool for years, sadly it's just better and i hate it. Adobe's real threat is generative AI. While it's not there yet it will be. I should mention I'm a creative professional.

* anyone who thinks Maxon is any better than adobe should re-think that. They really hosed Z-Brush users

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