Adobe Pulls The Plug On Creative Suite

Megalith

Megalith

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While the concept was met with substantial whining when it debuted in 2012, Adobe has managed to make serious bank off Creative Cloud, which comprises the subscription-based versions of their design software. Not surprisingly, Adobe has decided to go all in and dump the idea of a boxed edition entirely (namely, Creative Suite 6). I will just echo my thoughts from the Office 365 post—while I am probably paying more in the long run, the regular, steady flow of new features makes the monthly payment worth it to me. The Creative Cloud app could use improvement, though. I’m not sure if it is just crappy coding, but oftentimes it feels like a virtualized program.

…at the beginning of this year, you could still purchase a brand new boxed copy of Adobe’s four-year-old Creative Suite 6 by calling an Adobe call center. But as of January 9th, Adobe officially pulled the plug on CS6: now it’s Creative Cloud or bust. Today, the page greets you with a new message: “Adobe creative apps are available exclusively through Creative Cloud.” Followed by, in smaller type at the bottom, “As of January 9, 2017 Creative Suite is no longer available for purchase.” Of course, this comes as no great surprise for any of us—Adobe has made no mystery of its intent to move 100% to the subscription model, and it stopped updating CS6 years ago. But it does beg the question: what about Lightroom.
 
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I liked the option to be honest. It was nice for small time projects, not as much for corporate functions though
 
I am all for it personally. If you use these products all the time, it is great. If you only need to use it for a while, you can grab it for a month.
 
I loathe the subscription/cloud/online/rental/"we own your software, your files and your dog and cat" software model. And as a bonus it usually comes with bloated cloud/online components and services that infest your machine.
 
Cloud just is the future for everything sooner or later.

But the biggest issue, specially if you use services from multiple providers is the licensing/payment portals. All these companies should go together for a single payment portal.
 
As someone who works in a University, I can tell you the licensing for CC is a complete FU in terms of budget. It puts our costs to support a student up multiple times over the traditional licensing model. It's basically a scam on their part to force-sell us software assurance contracts (and the licensing server is terrible).
 
The icing on the cake would be if you could pick and choose what you need exactly. Currently their 'subscriptions' craftily split key software that people like to use so you have to increase the cost.
 
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(Stroking my CS6 DVD while typing this) Adobe CC is a PITA to administer for my students, more expensive as well. I myself own a full version of CS6...does what I need it to do.
 
Well, as for Photoshop, Lightroom and Illustrator, there are actually good alternatives now.

A better, more featured Lightroom - Affinity Photo, which is now available for Windows, and only $40 right now.
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/

A better, more featured Illustrator - Affinity Designer, which is now available for Windows, and only $40 right now.
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/designer/

And you can do pretty much anything Photoshop can do with GIMP
https://www.gimp.org/

I refuse to pay for subscription based applications.
 
There are some places that need Adobe products on systems that are not connected to the internet. So they are stuck with CS6 for eternity?
 
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I detest every single subscription/rental license.

To add to cyclone3d's list a there is also Photoline for a replacement for Photoshop (59 Euro ~$64).
 
cyclone3d said:
Well, as for Photoshop, Lightroom and Illustrator, there are actually good alternatives now.

A better, more featured Lightroom - Affinity Photo, which is now available for Windows, and only $40 right now.
https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/
I refuse to pay for subscription based applications.
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I agree with you on the subscription thing. However, I picked up that Affinity Photo in December and returned it after a few days. I think it needs a few years of development before being a direct replacement. It has no photo browser or manager. It also took seconds to load a single photo on an i7-6700 32GB ram with SSD drives, which would have killed my workflow. I think the closest replacement at the moment is Capture One that is around $300.
 
If anyone thinks this stops piracy of Adobe products, it doesn't, and nothing ever will except maybe them just saying "Fuck it..." and giving it away completely free of cost but, look at that this way: the chance of them doing that - giving their products away entirely free of cost - is the same as them ever stopping the piracy of the very same products.
 
Who need Adobe ? HitFlim Pro 2017 blow all Adobe out of water, I use HitFlim 4 Express I love it. Plan to buy HitFlim Pro 2017 someday.
 
Hopefully this will push my company to finally put us on the Cloud version. We've been rocking CS6 for years because they don't like subscription model software.
 
Meeho said:
I loathe the subscription/cloud/online/rental/"we own your software, your files and your dog and cat" software model. And as a bonus it usually comes with bloated cloud/online components and services that infest your machine.
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Here's a paragraph from a history book I bought in a book store in the future:

The 21st centuries greatest accomplishment was the heralding in of the new economic system known and complete corporate slavery. While slavery had been considered a socially unviable methodology in the previous centuries, it was concluded by scientists the reason slavery had failed previously was because it had never been done by corporations. These scientist, known at the time as "stock holders" were able to show that with their guidance and best practices that all members of a society could be slaves owned by corporations and under this symbiotic relationship all citizens would be treated equally.
 
Zareek said:
Kyle I agree with you completely but I think if they didn't charge so damn much for it, people wouldn't pirate it as much as they do. If they sold it for say $150 for a home user I bet it would have sold better and had 10 times less pirating. I know they sell that joke of a consumer version call essentials but that is so nerfed no one wants or uses it.

My initial response to this was holy crap I thought they did this at least a year ago. My last job was for a small web development company and the boss asked me to price out some copies of the latest Adobe Suite. I started searching and all I could find were vendors that didn't look legit selling CS6. We ended up with a subscription to Creative Cloud and that was a pain in the butt. The boss wanted a copy installed on his workstation, his laptop he uses to work from home and the laptop he takes when he travels. Well conveniently you can only install it on two machines at once. It's not fun explaining to the boss he needs to choose 2.
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You can deactivate subscriptions on other machines easily. I have my Adobe apps installed on four different boxes. When you login and load up on one that it is not activated on, you are given the option to deactivate on another. Easy peasy.
 
As a government employee who uses the Creative Suite, I'll probably be on CS6 until my retirement lol no way in hell my office is going to start doing monthly subscription costs on software licensing.
 
phatbx133 said:
Who need Adobe ? HitFlim Pro 2017 blow all Adobe out of water, I use HitFlim 4 Express I love it. Plan to buy HitFlim Pro 2017 someday.
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Well that was a bust. No 4K support to give it a try.

And close up tech stuff at 4K is awesome if you have a 4K screen like many of our readers do.

 
Scottw said:
I agree with you on the subscription thing. However, I picked up that Affinity Photo in December and returned it after a few days. I think it needs a few years of development before being a direct replacement. It has no photo browser or manager. It also took seconds to load a single photo on an i7-6700 32GB ram with SSD drives, which would have killed my workflow. I think the closest replacement at the moment is Capture One that is around $300.
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The thing I noticed about Lightroom is that it loads the embedded jpeg initially so that stuff shows up quicker. Affinity Photo appears to just load up the RAW file directly which does seem to take a bit longer.

As for the photo browser/manager that is in Lightroom.. I pretty much absolutely hate it.

I'll keep my photos organized how I want them with no lame import to library function. Why is the "library" even needed? Why must I import photos that I want to work with? Why can't I just work with them directly?
 
I got in on the Christmas special of $16.99 or something a month for the full Creative Suite (used a .edu email). It is a pretty extensive collection. Having the PDF publishing and integration into Word is useful.
 
phatbx133 said:
Who need Adobe ? HitFlim Pro 2017 blow all Adobe out of water, I use HitFlim 4 Express I love it. Plan to buy HitFlim Pro 2017 someday.
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Does the "Pro" version get rid of most of the Microtransactions? When I looked at HitFilm (regular?), you had to buy so many add-ons. It was obvious what their business model. Low initial price, then finance the rest.
 
Snowdog said:
Adobe, Microsoft and everyone else wants to rent your software because it makes them more money. That should be obvious.
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I'm kind of wondering when the "explosive" cloud growth will either taper off or fully decline in numbers. It always, always comes down to economics. If they believe their economy is going to be fully subscription based, then there will have to be a reckoning when someone decides they've got to cut their own personal budget or a corporate one. As the monthly expenses pile up, decisions will be made. This is always fun to watch.
 
zkostik said:
Yeah, that's what their intentions were. Though with enterprise versions, it still has full installer. Given the significantly lower up front cost and per month payments is much better for non pro users. There's also no longer all the bs with activation and install problems of the CS. Personally I kind of like this move. Didn't see any issues at all with CC which I can't say about CS products.
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Yea, don't believe the activation is perfect propaganda. We had to fix a few of those. Relatively easy to do, but did require a call to Adobe. Not as perfect as they'll claim.
 
westrock2000 said:
Does the "Pro" version get rid of most of the Microtransactions? When I looked at HitFilm (regular?), you had to buy so many add-ons. It was obvious what their business model. Low initial price, then finance the rest.
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HitFlim 4 Express, You can buy some add-ons what ever you want, The more you buy add-ons, HitFilm Pro 2017 will give you discount to buy full version one time.

I have HitFlim 4 Express with 2 add-ons, They offer me HitFlim Pro 2017 for about $269.00 instead of $350.

Just buy more add-ons, You will get greater discount to buy Pro 2017.
 
Paladin21 said:
While you're OK with that and it wouldn't bother me as a user, I can't imagine telling a Dean or VP that they're going to have to juggle subscription activations between machines. Even if it's the most trivial process in the world, that isn't going to work. They will *absolutely* demand that all their crap work all the time with no thought involved on their end.

From the end-user perspective, my only real gripes are about how your files get locked if you let your subscription lapse. You should still be able to look at work performed while you paid for the sub, though not do any additional work on your project. From the corporate support side of view, CC sucks balls and is a total nightmare to deal with. It doesn't help that every person I've talked to about licensing at Adobe is a schizophrenic idiot. You get different answers from each person you talk to, and multiple times we've had them claim that things that were already agreed to aren't policy. Don't get me started on what the University's lawyer thought of the licensing contract from his end...
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What do you mean by "your files get locked"? Is this only if you store them online on Adobe's cloud?
 
I've actually become a fan of the Creative Cloud model. I'm a very sporadic Photoshop/Premiere user and paying 20 bucks the months I need it vs paying several hundred for something I use a few times a year. Toss in you can usually get 1 month free a year. It works out well for me.

And honestly when I was in the Multimedia space we were paying yearly license maintenance for support and to be able to upgrade so it really didn't change much for the shops that use it.
 
The problem with this model is that a lot of companies expense purchases like this as a one-time expense that falls on a single quarter or year. My firm isn't a big fan of paying for it again and again even if the price comes out the same.
 
DocSavage said:
What do you mean by "your files get locked"? Is this only if you store them online on Adobe's cloud?
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That was, admittedly, poor phrasing on my part. When you cancel your subscription, your stuff will stay in their Cloud service (though they will erase whatever you have that's over the free storage amount). What I meant was that with most subscription software, you have access to pre-existing work after your license period ends. If I have Office 365 and I make a spreadsheet or powerpoint and then stop my sub, I can download the viewer and view and use that work. If I am working on a project in Adobe CC and drop my sub, there is no way to access prior work through them. They hold the keys to not only using the software currently, but to accessing your previous work. You can, of course, try converting all of your stuff over and using a different program but if you have any significant body of work that's a non-starter for many users. That also overlooks the fact that there are no "drop in" replacements for most of the Adobe product stack, so any conversion process is going to cost you some degree of functionality in your already existing work.
 
Snowdog said:
Affinity Photo is NOT a Lightroom competitor, it is a direct Photoshop competitor.
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I haven't used it that much yet, so I was just going by what their page said and what I remembered Photoshop being able to do.

The info on their main page makes it sound more like a photo development program than a Photoshop competitor.

If it really can do all that, then I will just use it instead of it and Gimp.
 
phatbx133 said:
HitFlim 4 Express, You can buy some add-ons what ever you want, The more you buy add-ons, HitFilm Pro 2017 will give you discount to buy full version one time.

I have HitFlim 4 Express with 2 add-ons, They offer me HitFlim Pro 2017 for about $269.00 instead of $350.

Just buy more add-ons, You will get greater discount to buy Pro 2017.
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Hitfilm Pro 2017 is listed as $296.65 on their site.

Do they ever have any sales?
 
Can you get just Photoshop and Illustrator together?

I would assume not.
 
cyclone3d said:
Hitfilm Pro 2017 is listed as $296.65 on their site.

Do they ever have any sales?
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I signed up their subscribe in mail.

2qdmqsx.jpg
 
Paladin21 said:
While you're OK with that and it wouldn't bother me as a user, I can't imagine telling a Dean or VP that they're going to have to juggle subscription activations between machines. Even if it's the most trivial process in the world, that isn't going to work. They will *absolutely* demand that all their crap work all the time with no thought involved on their end.
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It actually pops up a window and asks you if you want to move the licensing. It is literally not a problem at all. Not anywhere like it used to be, that is for sure....
 
leezard said:
yeah you can, with my student discount it costs me about $10 a month
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And in real world money? o_O
'
Seriously though they don't bundle say Photoshop and Illustrator together in a good deal. Basically you can pay for one, pay for two over the odds or have the whole lot for even more.

£36 for the two or oh...just £46 for everything.

Why not the two for £20-25?
 
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