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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

#81

Post by hungryhobbit »

socalgal2 wrote: post #75
II2II wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can afford it, that is wonderful. For those who either cannot afford it or who don't need its features, then be happy that the competition is stepping up. They get the software they need. You get the software you need. I've never really understood why people insist that there can be only one or two products per software category, particularly when the category has a large enough customer base to support multip…

no one is insisting there are can only be one or two products per category. Rahter, at some point in your life, $120 a year is not that much. It's $10 a month, that's two coffees, A MONTH! I bought Affinity Photo at one point, when it was $50. Then I tried to use it for a work project where I needed to do a minor edit to 150 photos. I figured out how to do it but it's workflow was tedious. At 3 mins per photo it woul…

I disagree. For a long time, Adobe insisted it was the only product in the category: that's how we got here.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#82

Post by [deleted] »

socalgal2 wrote: post #78
chromacity wrote: post #24

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…

It boggles the mind how many people will go and use an inferior solution to avoid spending the price of 2 coffees a month.

[deleted]

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#83

Post by newsclues »

nradov wrote: post #51
wongarsu wrote: post #40

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.

Oh no books cost money. Have you seen how much tuition is? To be in an old classroom and learn decades old math and English?

It's almost like I could drop out, work on campus and read books at the library for free. I just wasn't Good Looking Will Hunting.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#84

Post by newsclues »

matwood wrote: post #59
CWuestefeld wrote: post #22

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…

Way back when the only real LR competitor was Aperture. I moved to LR when Apple discontinued Aperture, though I really wish they hadn't. I've tried all the competitors multiple times but keep coming back to LR for my DSLR usage.

Apple being an off and on competitor in the space was always strange.

They failed to commit, and often let their tools languish, despite the following. Odd.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#85

Post by bnj »

nradov wrote: post #51
wongarsu wrote: post #40

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.

In my circles it is regular and routine for students to use an older edition, pirate, and/or use library copies. Many students literally can’t afford to buy the books at list price and find other ways to manage.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#86

Post by bnj »

oliwarner wrote: post #80
nehal3m wrote: post #6

http://archive.today/WCDgq It’s so insidious to sell yearly subscriptions that you pay for monthly. I want to pay by the month precisely because I decide on a monthly basis whether I need a service. If you want out early with Adobe you have to cough up half of the remaining subscription time. For hobby photography do yourself a favor and skip this dark pattern peddler. I’ll pour one out for the pro’s.

I struggle to think of it as insidious. The problem you have is you're reading it wrong. There is no monthly licence. It's an annual licence that you can either pay up front or split, either way, you need to pay. In 1995 it cost us the equivalent of $2k up front to buy Photoshop. I think there was actually a small discount but it was a hecking big payout. You'd get to keep that version forever, but what if you only n…

It’s insidious because you’re being required to agree to pay for a year of use, split monthly, but cannot decide to cancel during the term of the agreement without paying for use that you don’t want. Just because the terms are clear doesn’t mean it’s not an insidious pricing scheme.

If it were not insidious, it would be easy to answer the question: “what costs for adobe are being covered by the early termination fee?” - but there aren’t any costs, the fee is a punishment to dissuade you from cancelling and hoping that you will miss the window to prevent automatic renewal.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#87

Post by nradov »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #67
nradov wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

OK so just always do it right the first time and never make mistakes. Also, get lucky. Got it.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#88

Post by chromacity »

socalgal2 wrote: post #78
chromacity wrote: post #24

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…

It boggles the mind how many people will go and use an inferior solution to avoid spending the price of 2 coffees a month.

I think that's a goofy take. It's two coffees everywhere. Every other software vendor is trying to move to the subscription model. If you add up all the licenses you need to do work, have hobbies, or procrastinate (Netflix, Spotify, etc), is it still two coffees a month?

I know many folks who make $500k+ a year in the SF Bay Area and complain about affordability, and to a large extent, it's stuff like that that makes them poorer.

Also, my point is that there's nothing inferior about solutions such as Capture One, at least not as far as hobby workflows go.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#89

Post by CyberDildonics »

Wistar wrote: post #37
j45 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

acdsee is another one worth exploring.

acdsee, at least a few years ago when I was using it for large volume jpg commercial work, is fast and often good enough. The trickier stuff went for a spin in Photoshop.

Lots of photo editing workflows could be done in something like digital fusion which is free. You just have to use roto instead of painting masks, but the procedural graph workflow is more precise. It would also handle anything in a numbered sequence automatically so batch processing is trivial.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#90

Post by breakfastduck »

jart wrote: post #69
diath wrote: 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 fo…

I did exactly the same, for creating graphics / posters. Love Pixelmator... is PS better at some stuff? For sure, but it's not stuff I need. Thats adobes issue.
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