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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

#141

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…

How are you paying $120/year for the Photography bundle? It's been $20/mo for at least a year now, I think. $30/mo if you're going truly month-to-month.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#142
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The whole suite of Affinity apps is now free (after Canva bought them). For a hobbyist there was never a better time.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Capture One might cost more, but it's a one off payment. I'm still happily using CO11 (8 or 9 years old?) and if it was good enough for professional use when it came out, it's more than enough for me now.

... until you get a new camera and their support for new RAW formats on CO11 is just not there.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#144
Also the Reader has become so bloated and ugly that I abandoned it for the tiny SumatraPDF that starts faster than a blink of an eye and displays PDFs for reading very nicely. I don't need all that features which Adobe stuffed within Reader, only sometimes I miss the digital signature panel. I do hope, however, that Sumatra will add digital signature verification at some point. Fingers crossed.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is confusing? A well exposed shot shouldn’t need any editing really.

And a real programmer doesn't need a debugger because he gets his code right from the start...

I don't think too many people manage to get a wildlife, landscape, astro, macro or night shot so well exposed that no editing is needed.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capture One might cost more, but it's a one off payment. I'm still happily using CO11 (8 or 9 years old?) and if it was good enough for professional use when it came out, it's more than enough for me now.

... until you get a new camera and their support for new RAW formats on CO11 is just not there.

That's super annoying that you often need a new version just because you got a new camera

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#148

For reference, the Creative Cloud Pro Suite (formerly All Apps) is US$1,259.88 per year at $104.99 per month or $839.88 per year if you lock in for a non-refundable, non-cancellable 1 year contract. Creative Cloud Standard Suite is US$989.88 per year at $659.88 per month or $839.88 per year if you lock in for a year. You lose unlimited access to AI features and instead get 25 monthly credits for them. You also lose a…

* EDIT (pasted in the wrong monthly price): Creative Cloud Standard Suite is US$989.88 per year at $82.49 per month or $839.88 per year if you lock in for a year. You lose unlimited access to AI features and instead get 25 monthly credits for them. You also lose access to premium AI features like video generation as well as partner models (Google, OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Topaz)

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 make…

> 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.

You don't have to make absurd extrapolations to make your point. Even with 20 subscriptions at $20/mo, that's $400/mo or $4800/yr, about 2% of net income.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#150
post #20

I bought CS6 Suite back in 2012 and used it well into 2021. Before that I had a patchwork of CS3 programs from 2005 I was given the discs for second-hand. Nowadays I use Krita, ffmpeg, Blender, Zim Desktop Wiki, and Inkscape to replace Flash/Animator, Photoshop, Premier, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks. CS6 cost me $549 back in 2012 under a pretty generous student discount, but would've been $1,800 otherwise. That's $790…

> You can't even get secondhand instances of the software like I did as a youth with CS3.

Were you able to get the DRM-free “offline” CS3 installers during the time they were offered? I will cherish mine forever lol https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24865636

Still using Photoshop CS3 for my daily image-editing needs in Windows 11 on my Framework Laptop 12. Mostly cleaning up album art for my music library metadata and cleaning up my flatbed scans (removing damaged spots, fixing UV fade, hiding the glare from the scanner passing a horizontal light over something that has been creased for years (like a DVD/BD case sleeve), etc.

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