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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

#151

Post by anigbrowl »

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.

The fact that students are scammed in one area isn't a compelling argument for them to get scammed in others.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#152

Post by majormajor »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #96
socalgal2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't pay for $5 coffee. I make my coffee at home, from my own grind, with just some half and half. Sure, I splurged and paid for maybe a $100 grinder or something, but that is being used for years, meaning the cost per cup is abysmal. It seems very odd we normalize coffee being $5.

> It seems very odd we normalize coffee being $5.

What does this mean, exactly? "We" didn't normalize it. People sold it for that - because they also have to pay rent, labor, etc - and people said "sure, that works for me, especially since I like the coffee you're making, I'll likely hang out here a while vs getting something cheaper elsewhere."

You can still get cheaper elsewhere.

Nobody "normalized" that, it just happened. You could say it's weird that people didn't complain, but... well, they did? It's a cliche at this point. But for a lot of people it's cheap enough to be fine ($5 is not a life-changing amount to add into your savings even if you're avoiding it once a day). If you really think it's a ripoff and nonsensically high, open your own coffee shop to make a killing?

Hell, if someone comes out with a super-amazing Lightroom replacement I'd be more likely to move to that than I would be to start avoiding coffee shops. Even though I spend more money on the coffee than on Lightroom. But the most viable option I ever saw has been abandoned for over a decade and only ran on Macs in the first place.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#153

Post by majormajor »

GeekyBear wrote: post #97
newsclues wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apple moved into the space when Adobe's willingness to support the Mac faltered during the transition from classic MacOS to OSX. Once Adobe finally committed to supporting the new platform, it wasn't as necessary anymore.

Eh, Lightroom didn't exist when Apple released Aperture. OS X had been well supported for a couple years at that point, and Apple never went for Photoshop directly.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#154

Post by cellular »

breakfastduck wrote: post #91
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…

The issue is 95% of users dont use the features that adobe is so much better at. I've moved from PS to Pixelmator and there are even more moving from PS to Canva. Doesnt matter to most users that PS generative fill is better.

Same goes for fusion 360 when you just want to do CNC. Use "GatorCAM for cnc". $30 with future upgrades included.

https://sites.google.com/view/gatorcam/home

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#155

Post by frollogaston »

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…

Yeah if the alternatives were actually better, we wouldn't hear all this complaining about Adobe's pricing. People want the best thing for free/cheap I guess.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#156

Post by frollogaston »

moregrist wrote: post #104
socalgal2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s not the $10/mo that bothers me. It’s the nature of essentially leasing the software. Before it was a subscription, you bought a version and could use _that version_ in perpetuity, possibly with some number of well-defined upgrades. If you didn’t want to upgrade, your software still worked. The value proposition of the software was clear. Now I need to decide whether paying the subscription, possibly forever, is…

Doesn't seem any worse than deciding whether paying a huge sum upfront is worth the value in the long run. The old way wasn't like that though, it was 90% of users pirating Adobe.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#157

Post by frollogaston »

jasomill wrote: post #117
CWuestefeld wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how what Adobe insists on is at all relevant. Reality informs us that there have always been competitors in the field: GIMP, DarkTable, ACDSee, Luminar, and many others. It's surely true that their existence has been pushing Adobe to improve. And the good news for everyone is that they have: Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop are improved products now, and so are those other competitors.

Inertia, wide use across various industries, and specific features not available in other products. Basically, it's the Microsoft Office of print and visual media.

So what was Adobe supposed to do, make a worse product to give the other ones a chance?

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#158

Post by frollogaston »

newsclues wrote: post #84
matwood wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's even weirder cause some of it was self-inflicted from making Macs very unfriendly to GPUs in various ways.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#159

Post by frollogaston »

Arcanum-XIII wrote: post #77
croes wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly people stick to what they know even if better alternatives exist

I've tried the alternative for Photoshop and came out unimpressed. It's even worse for Illustrator, and I hate this software. They're not perfect. I don't like the pricing either or their attitude. Still, After Effect, Illustrator, Indesign are very good. I'm not ripped off with the suite at the end... I have the same issue with Maxon and Zbrush: nothing is close, but it's still the best at what it does. We have an e…

Yeah a bunch of people promised me GIMP is just as good as Photoshop. Look I'm glad GIMP exists and thankful for the free software, but it's not even close to equal.

Re: The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

#160

Post by maplethorpe »

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…

There isn't really a good alternative for After Effects, despite its flaws. There are other motion graphics tools, but they're usually missing enough functionality that you eventually go crawling back to Adobe.

Now that software development is apparently solved, can someone please build a GPU-accelerated version of After Effects? Every motion designer in the world would make the switch over night.

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