It looks like Adobe is modifying their Creative Cloud subscription models as they analyze their data on subscribers. Initially, after promotional upgrades to CC, the price was set to go up $19.99/month.
Below is from the linked Adobe website:
For a limited time, you can join a special Creative Cloud plan designed exclusively for Photoshop customers focused on photography. It includes access to Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5, plus feature updates and upgrades as they are available, 20GB of cloud storage for file sharing and collaboration, and a Behance ProSite. And it's just US $9.99/month when you sign up for a one-year plan. This is not an introductory price, but you need to join by December 31, 2013.
So the software is now cloud based? Basically it's $120.00 for a license to PS and LR per year? It looks like a great deal on its face but I'm not sure how to feel about that. I'm also not sure how effective that is going to be when you start dealing with 20-30 MB images over the cloud.
"If at first you don't succeed, skydiving was not for you."
NRivera wrote:So the software is now cloud based? Basically it's $120.00 for a license to PS and LR per year? It looks like a great deal on its face but I'm not sure how to feel about that. I'm also not sure how effective that is going to be when you start dealing with 20-30 MB images over the cloud.
It's a web-app, not cloud based. You actually have the software in your computer. However, if you stop the subscription it quits working. You still have all of your files, but you don't have Photoshop CC (or Lightroom) functionality anymore. Our office currently has PD CS6, so we won't have to go through changing to CC for several years. Hopefully by then everything will be figured out an established.
I see... I still don't know how to feel about that. If you consider that the full version of PS software was about $650, you could use CC for about 5 and a half years for that same cost. Except that now you are forced to fork out that much money for each user where past versions could be installed on multiple machines or bulk licenses were available at a discount. It's just another example of the man trying to get his...
I agree, the smart move is to stick with CS6 for now. Even CS5 has a significant life cycle left, at least for latent print work.
"If at first you don't succeed, skydiving was not for you."
That price is only for people upgrading from CS3 or newer (otherwise, I'm assuming it's the $19.99/month price for new users).
However you didn't actually *own* the software in the eyes of Adobe - you were licensed to possess and use it, if done under certain rules. You weren't supposed to install it on multiple machines to be used by different users (with a single license). You were allowed to install it on two devices (most likely a laptop and a desktop) and weren't supposed to use them concurrently.
You could (and likely still can) buy bulk licenses, but I've heard the discount is rather minimal.
One thing you do get with the CC version of Adobe products is contant updating to the newest "version." Outside of bugs and security vulnerabiliies, there won't be additional updates in functionality with CS6, however the CC version will always be the newest product. For how we use it forensically, this isn't necessarily a big deal though.
Personally, I was planning on keeping CS4 until CS7 came out. But I had to do things differently upon hearing of the CC version. I've got it installed in my desktop, but my laptop still has CS4. When I get a replacement for that laptop, it will get CS6 installed.
The not owning and licensing to possess software is the same logic used by Apple, Amazon, et. al. You don't actually own the songs on iTunes or the books on your Kindle, oh no, you just possess a digital license to them.
And Adobe's shareholders certainly seem to be happy with the move to cloud based subscriptions for their products.
It looks like Adobe is evolving their subscription offers. Through the end of this year, they have a "Photoshop Photography Program" offer for existing users of CS3 or later (Standard or Extended Version). The price is $9.99/month, based on a 1 yr subscription. They say it's not an introductory offer, but they ultimately control if/when it would be increased.
This seems like a reasonable plan for someone who was looking at upgrading from an earlier version and tends to skip several versions. Assuming you purchase a new version every four years, it would be $480 worth of subscription over that period of time. That's competitive with the pricing of Photoshop alone, and you get Lightroom too. But if you don't have an upgradable version, the price would be double for Just Photoshop CC.
It looks like Adobe has expanded their Photoshop CC + Lightroom 5 offer to include anyone. It doesn't require having a previously registered version of CS3 or newer. As mentioned earlier, this isn't supposed to be an introductory offer - it's supposed to be the ongoing plan price. That's not too bad for someone who normally updated every few generations of Photoshop and also uses Lightroom, but none of the other Adobe products.
For a limited time, you can join a special Creative Cloud plan. It includes access to Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5, plus feature updates and upgrades as they are available, 20GB of cloud storage for file sharing and collaboration, and a Behance ProSite. And it's just US $9.99/month when you sign up for a one-year plan, but you need to join by December 2, 2013. Questions? See our FAQ and terms.
For those of us who also kept Photoshop on our home computers but find another $20 per month bill distasteful (especially when we sometimes go for months without using the program at home), what other alternatives are there? Does "Gimp" do layers and offer the enhancement and marking tools that Photoshop does? Does it allow you to resize and resample? What about Photoshop Elements? Do any of the various Elements versions work for LP applications?
"Man was born free, but he is everywhere in chains." -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
GiMP does offer layers, most enhancement tools that LPE's use, and the same markup type tools. However, they are usually called something different and are typically found in different menus than in Photoshop. GiMP definitely can replace Photoshop for onscreen LP work, but it will require learning a new program. Some quick google searches should answer most questions of how to do something in GiMP that you used to do in Photoshop.
I'm also not sure how effective that is going to be when you start dealing with 20-30 MB images over the cloud.