Thank you Adobe!

But it's still more than the free (and capable) GIMP. So you're paying $600 to use the tool that your friends are using.

It's a shame they don't have more people developing GIMP.

 

If that's the way you want to look at it, go for it. It honestly does strike me that you're doing anything you can to trivialise its value, though. "[Using] the tool that [my] friends are using" has immense value in and of itself, and that benefit was an afterthought.

For what it's worth, I wasn't interested in PS until after I'd tried a bunch of GIMP alternatives. GIMP is great except that I do about half of my work on a Mac, and GIMP is unusably slow on there - sometimes several seconds of mouse lag on trivial operations. I couldn't find a good alternative that was Windows and Mac compatible until PS came along with it's $10/mo deal - by which point I'd already purchased a couple of the alternatives just to try them out.

So now I've got a professional level tool that works great on both platforms I commonly use, has plenty of (professional) learning material, is the same as the guys I sit next to at work use, has great tools built on it (I'd love to try Quixel out), and gives me native access to the most common source format I run into (so sharing stuff with people who can help me out is way easier). That's a list of stuff I'm totally happy to pay for, despite the fact that - yes - there are other tools out there that are cheaper which are also really capable in their own right. Once more, features aren't just about 'buttons and stuff'.

And finally, I haven't spent $600 on anything yet. I've spent $120 on getting what I listed in the above paragraph for one year. What'll happen after that year? Who knows. I'll scout around again and use whatever makes the most sense at the time.

 

He already said he gets $10 worth of value from it. Does it really matter to you how that value is derived? Being able to share files with clients and contractors using a format you know will work is worth much more than $10 a month to many people here.

Personally the increase in capabilities and productivity for me is worth much more than $10 a month, and that's from someone who only spends a day or two a month in front of an image editor. I used GIMP for many years, but in Photoshop almost everything I want to do is easier, and the results usually look better (and sometimes MUCH better).

 

If I did own it I would still subscribe in a heartbeat. I doubt photoshop 3 would even run properly with the latest Mac OS.


If you do own photoshop 3 you have that choice to make and you don't even have to use the cloud service if you are confident you are getting no value.

Here is a list of new things if you are interested at what photoshop can do now that it could't before
http://www.adobe.com/au/products/photoshop/versions.html

But just looking at photoshop is narrow. I have benefited so much getting access to software I always wished I could afford.

All those old photoshop perpetual licences are still valid, so no reason to upgrade if you don't want too. I haven't seen anyone from adobe saying we are going to disable them.

 

And it might end up in you losing the client or them not using you again. They expect you are using the right tools and can give the right formats.

 

Well that's the idea. You're largely paying for bug fixes and not features.

 

a) making it work for all future OS isn't a bug fix that is part of a perpetual licence.
b) improvements to the way tools work isn't a bug fix that is part of a perpetual licence.
c) http://www.adobe.com/au/products/photoshop/versions.html seems like I have plenty of features of photoshop 3 doesn't have. And if you ask if I have used any of those new features, the answer will be yes.
d) for me photoshop is just one of the large suite of adobe products I new use thanks to CC. I wouldn't even have photoshop if it wasn't for CC. Many people have said the same (even in this thread). It is a great way for people to explore adobe products.
e) all of your arguments apply just as much to perpetual licences with upgrades. So I assume you are against new versions of photoshop too cause you should just get it free with your version 3 of photoshop.

Some people just want everything for free. Come it is less than an hours work a month to get ALL the adobe products. That is pretty awesome in the eyes of most professionals.

I bet if Unity made a similar offer for all the unity licences for a similar price everyone would buying that rather than the perpetual versions.

 

The question was not Photoshop 3 but Photoshop from 3 years ago. I can tell you that CS4 still runs on Mavericks because that's what I'm using. It's well over 5 years old, now.
All those hypothetical arguments in this thread really lead to nothing but arguing for arguments sake.
The status quo is - Adobe won't budge because they get their sales and CC is in their interest. Some people focus on the positive sides some focus on the negatives and some are inbetween and make decissions based on other factors, probably.

Everybody in this thread who is happy with subscription: good for you. I'm glad it works for you becaus that means you are substaintially more happy with what you get than I am at the moment

Speak for yourself, here. I would not in the foreseeable future.

 

The nice thing is that are now viable alternatives based on needs. If you don't need the full power/features of PS/AI/etc there are tools that will do what you need free or very inexpensive. And some like Mischief, that are just fun to use.

I work as visual artist/designer professionally and have so for a couple of decades. For my needs, there simply aren't any tools that come remotely close. Being able to use the same tools for print/motion/design/texturing/illustration is a huge benefit. Smart objects and scripting alone easily pay for the Adobe suite many times over for me. I do also use FW quite a bit, but mostly out of convenience and for speed. I do occasionally use SketchBookPro, because it is more responsive for fast sketching on a cintiq and on rare occasions I use Mischief, just because it is so much fun. But for the most part PS/AI are my visual workhorses, and since they are standards, I can use and share ldfs, and psds with smart objects.

 

"The software works on my computer" isn't a "bug fix" when you're talking about using it on an operating system that didn't even exist when the software was made.

 

Software typically does bug fix releases post-launch to resolve such issues ...

 

I wasn't expecting such a vocal response to this subject when I did the blog post. It's good to see so many different points of view on this!

 

from this thread which is a good read...

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1107365

Permanent License CG Software
Permanent License = After purchase, access to software and license does not expire.
Audio Editing
Acid Family (Win) $59.95-$149.95
Audacity (Open Source) Works great, but saves multiple caches, using a lot of disk space.
AVS Audio Editor Limited capabilities.
Cubase (Win, Mac) $99.99-$499.99
Cyberlink Audio Director - $96
MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab (Win) 49,99€
Multitrack Studio - $69-$119
NCH Software - Misc Audio Apps (Edit, Mix, Other) Limited capabilities.
Ocean Audio (Win, Mac, Linux) Free?
Pro Tools (Win, Mac) $699-$999
Reaper Phenomenal. I evaluated several audio apps, nothing else comes close - $60 or $225
Sound Forge - $65-$500
Wavosuar - Free, No installer, it just runs. Not multitrack.

Compositing/FX/2D Animation
Apple Motion (Mac)
Blender - Open Source
ButtleFox - Linux - Open Source
Final Cut Pro (Mac) - $299.99
Fusion
Hitfilm - Compositing/FX/Motion Graphics (Win, Mac version on the way) - $149 - $399
iMovie (Mac,iOS)
Howler - $10-$99
Mamba FX - Compositing (Win) - 239.00€ - 9,900.00€
Mistika - Compositing (Win)
Natron - Compositing (Win, Mac, Linux) - Open Source
Nodebox - Data visualization, fx (Win, Mac,Linux) - Open Source
Nuke
Picture Window Pro (Win, Mac (older version)) - $89.95
Piranha (Win, Mac,Linux) - Free?
Silhouette FX (Win, Mac,Linux) - $1495
Wax Standalone and Plugin (Win) Free

Flash/Vector Animation
AnimeStudio
Crazy Talk Animator
Flash ToonBoom
MotionArtist (Animation with HTML5 output, Looks cool) (Win, Mac) - $59.99
Photoline (Win/Mac) - £59
Syngif Studio - 2D bitmap/vector animation (Win, Mac,Linux) - Open Source Looks promising.
Tumult Hype (HTML5 Animation) (Mac) - $29.99
Unity
Xara Designer Pro (Win) - $299

Paint/Image Editing/FX
Acorn
ArtRage(Win, Mac, iPhone, iPad) - $49, iPhone: $1.99
ArtWeaver (Win) - 29€
Black Ink (Win) - 24,99€
Clip Studio Paint Family (Win, Mac) - $49.99-$219.00
Corel Painter - $69.99-$429
DogWaffle - Free-$49
Easy Paint Tool SAI
FireAlpaca (Win, Mac) - Free, not much info @ website
Gentica (Very Cool Texture Maker) (Win) - $149-$899
Gimp - Open Source
Illuststudio (Win)
InstantMask Pro, InstantPhotoSketch Pro (Mac/Win) - $29.95 each
Krita
Manga Studio (Same or similar to Clip Studio) (Mac/Win) - $79.99
Mari (Win/Linux) - $1995
Mischief (Pixel/Vector Hybrid) (Mac/Win) - $65
MyPaint (Win, Linux) - Open Source
OnOne Photo Suite (Win, Mac) - $179.95
openCanvas (Paint) (Win) - $49.90
Ormr (Paint/Vector) (Win, Mac) - $49.99 - (1/2 price during beta)
Paintshop Pro* - Misc Options
Photoline (Win/Mac) - £59
HDR Engine, PhotoEngine - $59, $149
PhotoPlus (Win) - $89.99
Pixelmator (Mac) - $14.99
Open Canvas (Win) - $50
Picture Window Pro (Win, Mac (older version)) - $89.95
Pro Motion (Win) - $78.00
SageLight (Win) - $79.95, special: $39.95 includes lifetime upgrades
Seashore (Mac) - Open Source
SketchBook Pro 6 (Win, Mac) - $59
Snapheal (Mac) - $14.99-$39.99
TVPaint (Win, Linux, Mac) - 495€-1180€
TwistedBrush - looks very full featured(Win) - $99
Xara
XaraExtreme (Linux) - Open Source

Interactive+
Amethyst 2 - $299
Construct Game maker for multiple platforms (Win) - Free-£259.00
MotionArtist (Animation with HTML5 output, Looks cool) (Win, Mac) - $59.99
SwishMax - $69.95-$174.95
Touch Designer - $2200
vvvv - a multipurpose toolkit - free (non-commericial)-£500

Photography Workflow
ACDSee Pro (Win) - $149.99
AfterShot Pro (Win/Mac/Linux) - $49
Aperture (Mac) - $79.99
Camera Bag (Win/Mac) - $15
Capture One - Misc Versions
DarkTable (Linux/Mac) - Open Source
DXO
FaceFilter - $29.99-$79.95
Graphic Converter (Mac) - 34.95€/$39.95
Lightzone (Linux/Win/Mac) - Open Source
Photivo (Win,Linux,Mac) - Open Source
Picasa - Free
PortraitPro (Mac only?) - $39.95-$119.95
Raw Studio (Linux, FreeBSD) - Open Source
Raw Therapee (Linux, Mac, Win) - Open Source
SilkyPix Developer (Win/Mac) - ~$270
Tiffen Dfx Family - Various Options

Print Layout
Coreldraw Graphics Suite - >$469
MultiAd Creator (Win, Mac) - $499
ID2Q (InDesign to Quark) (Win,Mac) - $199
QuarkXPress - $849
Scribus (Linux/UNIX, Mac, OS/2 Warp 4, eComStation, Haiku, Win) - Open Source
Serif PagePlus (Win) - $99.99
iStudioPublisher (Mac) - $17.99
Swiftpublisher (Mac) - $19.99
Viva Designer (Win/Mac/Linux) - Free-$399
Xara Designer Family (Win) - $49.99-$299

Vector Graphics/Illustration

Affinity Designer (Mac) - £34.99
Canvas (Mac/Win) - $599, $799 for GIS version
Corel Draw - Misc Options
DrawPlus (Win)
eazydraw (Mac) - $95.00
Graphic Design Studio (Mac) - $39.99
iDraw (Mac) - $24.99
Intaglio (Mac) - $89.00
Inkscape
Mapdiva Artboard and Ortelius (cartography) (Mac) Artboard - $29.99, Ortelius $29.99-$99.00
OpenOffice Draw (Win, Mac, Linux) - Open Source
Sketch (Mac) - $49.99
Torapp Guilloche Designer (Beta - Chrome)
Vectormator (Part of Pixelmator) (Mac) - $14.99
Xara
XaraExtreme (Linux) - Open Source
Vector Magic (Online/Win/Mac) - $7.95/month, $295 for app
ZeusDraw (Mac) - $90.00

Video Editing
avidemux (Win, Linux, BSD, Mac) - Open Source
Avid
Cyberlink Power Director Family - $45-$175
DaVinci Resolve (Mac) - Free - $995
EDIUS Pro 6.5 (Win) - $69
Final Cut
NCH Software - Misc Video Apps
Kdenlive (Linux)
Lightworks
MAGIX Video Pro X (Win) - £349
Movie Plus
SpeedEdit (Win)
Smoke
Sony Vegas - Several Flavors
Corel VideoStudio* - $69.99
VideoPad (Win) - $60.00-$99.00
Virtual Dub (Win) - Open Source
Wondershare Video Editor (Win) - $39.99

Web Authoring
Amaya (Last update was Jan, 2012) (Win, Mac, Linux) - Open Source
Aptana (Mac/Linux/Win Standalone or Eclipse Plugin) - Open Source
BlueGriffon (Win, Mac, Linux) - Open Source
Bluefish (Win, Mac, Linux) - Open Source
Coda (Coda) - $75
Eclipse (Win) - Open Source
Espresso (Mac) - $75
Flux (Mac) - $129.99
Freeway Express/Pro - $49.99/$149.99
Komodo (Win, Mac, Linux) - $382
Kompozer - Open Source
MotionArtist (Animation with HTML5 Output, Looks cool) (Win, Mac) - $59.99
NetBeans IDE (Win, Mac, Linux) - Open Source
NetObjects Fusion (Win?) - $129.95
RapidWeaver (Mac) - $79.95
Sandvox (Mac) - $79.99
Serif WebPlus (Win) - $99.99
Stylizer (Win, Mac) - $79
Sublime Text Editor (Win) - $70
Tumult Hype (HTML5 Animation) (Mac) - $29.99
Tumult HyperEdit (Mac) - $25
Viva Designer (Win/Mac/Linux) - Free-$399
Xara Designer Family (Win) - $49.99-$299

Utilities
ADOView - Reads and displays InDesign, InCopy, Illustrator and more. (Mac) - $9.99
XnView will read and write Photoshop .PSD files, also opens Adobe Illustrator .AI files."]XnView (Win) - Free

 

/agree

 

We've always preferred perpetual licenses.
Subscription only, among other reasons, was part of why we left Flash Pro for Unity.