Adobe Creative Suite 6 has been officially retired

I think part of the constant checking is because they allow you to install it on two computers. Theoretically, you could find a way to install it on more than two computers. This just keeps it so people can't log in on more than two computers at one time. I could see someone installing it, activating it twice. Disconnecting those PCs from the Internet for the entire subscription period, and then trying to install on another set of computers and telling Adobe that the first two are no longer in service (and if Adobe falls for this, it would work because those first two systems wouldn't have to check in with Adobe for the entire rental period or until the rental expired).

I mean, pretty so Windows will be that way--where you have an annual subscription for $99 per year (or something like that) but you get free upgrades to the latest OS, plus patches. Only catch will be that you have to connect to the Web at least once every 30 days. That's just the way all software is going...

this possible scenario could be addressed easily by adobe attempting to connect with previous computers to see if its being used actively if this happened .... and all they need to do is tell the third activation user that it needs to be deactivated [previous install ] , the original owner could read in plain english at the time of install that after 2 computers you need to deactivate on previous installs , or using the honor system call adobe and let them know a previous computer has died and no longer runs the program .... checking in once a week isnt acceptable imho

Yes but many people probably would just call Adobe and lie about one of the previous installs. That's where the problem lies, and I think Adobe has identified it as a potential problem (or maybe has confirmed that people have been doing that with non-subscription software) and thus getting another seat of the software for free essentially. Yes, every week is a bit obsessive for checking up (30 days would be more like it) but I can also see why they do it. They're protecting their revenue streams by ensuring that everyone is legit and not using copies or the software in a way that violates the EULA.

I mean, you guys use Anti-virus, I would assume, correct? Most AV programs check in every few days, and some, after about 15 or 30 days, are disabled unless you check in with the developer's servers (either through Live updates or some other means). The subscription model for software, unfortunately, is here to stay and everyone's moving to it, if they haven't already.

There already is a competitor to Photoshop; it's Gimp.

lol

My brand new Surface book with performance base runs 6 just fine.

yes on the apple side ..... of course , some choose freedom and liberation from corporate control of our collective computer experience, saying this often sounds silly to long time apple users , but it makes perfect sense to windows and linus users, and before someones says apple is a type of linux, well it isnt as soon as chains were attached it became a 100 percent apple os

like anything else. you can decline the updates if you choose.

i do photo video, design and web. which required me to have the "master collection". a cc subscription was nearly the exact same price as my usual low-level upgrade schedule.

i wont argue that this was an effort to a degree to keep customers attached. but what's the alternative? go out of business until there is a compelling reason to start back up? that's not realistic either.

The large global engineering company that I work for stopped at CS6 and will not move to CC. I guess the finance guys decided they didn't want to pay infinite ransom demands to Adobe whilst also losing future rights to open our own creations. As a result, some departments have already moved to Inkscape for all their line diagrams and are doing just fine. It's also great for external contractors because they can all contribute graphics at no cost to themselves, in a nice open file format, SVG.

"putting your business at the mercy of a company that can change the terms and price of so many of your essential tools is a bit worrying."

i wouldn't argue with that. but that's been the landscape in the desktop publishing business since more or less the start. and especially for the last 15 years or so. when adobe (and to a degree, apple and even crappy corel) in one way or another absorbed aldus, macromedia and other smaller tools like KPT and boris.

When you do the math over a period of time (5 years) the pricing is about the same as if you bought a boxed product, assuming you upgraded maybe every other year. Think about it: CS6 Design Web Premium was a $2000 purchase with a reasonable lifespan of maybe 3-4 years and did not include After Effects or Premiere. So, basically over a 4 year period, the current $50 CC full subscription costs you about $2400 over a 4 year period. If you use almost all the apps that Adobe has to offer, that's actually a great deal. Looks bad as a single number, but when you factor in the cost to actually buy those programs outright (licensing vs. subscription) this is actually a cheaper option, because you'd be at around $3000+ in total if you had to pay extra to acquire a license for Premiere and After Effects (Not 100% sure if Premiere was available as a CS6 product or not, but either way, over a 3-4 year period, its not really any more costly than it was before).

Adobe are playing exactly the same game as satellite/cable TV companies. You cannot buy just the items you want for a cheap price - you are pretty much forced to buy expensive bundles including tons of crap you will never use (since individual apps have such obscene rental prices). If Adobe were a decent and fair company, they 'd let you pay a much cheaper range of prices, say $6 / $12 / $15 /month, and let you simultaneously install any 3, 4, or 5 apps of your choice, for example, with discounts for the more you install up to a maximum of perhaps $30 /month for 10 or more apps.

OK so for Photographers, which is probably most of the people on here, you get the $10 ($11 probably with tax) per month package. So after one year, you've paid $132. Photoshop used to be an $800 program. Even if you kept PS for 5 years, it would still pan out to about $160 per year, and that's without lightroom. So over a 5 year period, you're getting PS and LR for $660 vs. how it used to be $800 for a perpetual license of PS. You do get screwed if you have to get the other apps, like InDesign, Illustrator, AFter Effects, etc., as the single-app pricing is more expensive. But for photographers who only use PS and LR, this is a heck of a deal. The other packages I think are really aimed and businesses and media creation studios that need 10+ seats of almost all the apps. That's their target market I think for the Premium creative suite of apps for $50 per month. But still, even $50 per month is a decent deal when you look at what they used to cost individually.

Amen, if Adobe forces people to switch they'll look for alternatives rather than staying loyal.

@Newe, A software product is pretty much retired when the publisher either says it is, or when they just stop developing/supporting it (whether they tell us about it, or not). Either situation makes further consumer purchases risky at best.

I'm pretty sure that either Adobe will forbid any new installations to activate that haven't been previously activated on the same hardware, or they will send out a "kill" signal that will deactivate any old "unsupported" versions via Internet.

Why replace LightRoom?

Capture One is streets ahead IMO. The very dense interface takes a little getting used to, though.

Glad to see Affinity on the menu. Not a subscription and loaded with PS interface and logic with its own unique and very sophisticated developments. Works fine with RAW (no plug in required), Photoshop and plays nicely with Adobe Bridge. It's cost was a fraction of Adobe CS6 or CC. After more than twenty years, a PS everyday user... Goodbye Adobe.

@jensR

At first i was confused about being 'signed out' on a non CC app - but gotcha- you can do that to sync with mobile etc.(correct?).

Even with my legit adobe software, i block all unnecessary connections to my machine. Better safe than sorry, especially when crazy stuff like this can happen when u play by the rules. Companies have gone crazy about what info they want from your machines and phone...and i wont help them on that journey.

I don't know...to me 9.99/month plus tax just does not seem unreasonable for PS/LR. Of course, when that goes up...I will check out the AI replacement. If my version of AI CS5 becomes obsolete, well, $20 a month is a bit rich...I can't justify that vs how often I actually use it.

@agentul - Point of view is everything in this sort of situation. I'm sure the Adobe MBAs consider the profit most fair!

Anything would be "fair" - it's their product so they can charge whatever they want.
Tempted to buy lightroom, but I fear they will make it obsolete somehow as fast as they can.
Or, subscribe to PS but just subscribe once in awhile when I'm taking more shots, such as summer or every other month.

Glen, could you share with us what products are you currently satified with?

So a boxed copy of PS CS6 was about $700 I think. And over a 4 year period, a CC Photography subscription gets you Lightroom and Photoshop for a total of $480 + tax over a four year period. It's actually cheaper. Even if you upgraded every 2 years, the CC plan is a considerably cheaper. I think that's also what they realized is that many people couldn't fork out $800 for a license, so they made it more affordable, and I think it is to the average user. It used to be that Photoshop was really only for the elite and designers, professional photo editors, and others who could afford it and understand how to use it. Now they want to make it available to everyone, on a plan that almost everyone can afford, even the poorest of photographers and designers. Yes, you do give up some privacy (I don't use the online storage with my CC subscription though) but in the end, it is cheaper both in the short term and long run.

My wife rented a dress for her company holiday party... Here's the craziness: for the fee charged, she got to pick a dress, a backup dress, and 2 sizes of each one. So, 4 dresses arrived in the mail.

Of course, leasing is the most expensive way to own a car.

If you don't ever upgrade hardware then you win out against the software company. Most people upgrade PCs on a 3-5 year basis.

Charge something like $500 for the software per machine, for the lifetime of the machine.

Kindness is never free.

That was quicker than I thought, wonder what the next excuse will be to raise subscription?

Only 20%, which seems a huge currency fluctuation, LOL...

The only price hikes I have seen reported are for Norway & UK.....so far.

Here is the link to price rise:

https://www.dpreview.com/news/8906931620/creative-cloud-subscribers-in-the-uk-and-sweden-can-expect-price-hikes-starting-next-month

They haven't decided yet, the one in the UK and Sweden is a test to see what they can get away with. Then I would say it will go global.

When they use a lame excuse like currency fluctuation which is bs because you pay in US dollars it makes no difference what the currency value is as you still get the full US dollars. The only difference is if your currency value goes up to the US dollar you are lucky as you pay a little less. So go figure it out.

Personally I love it when our currency fall slightly as it makes my photos a bit cheaper and have a chance to sell more.

i can guarantee that 18 percent in the other direction would not be refunded to customers because im sure of that .... im sure they should just wait a bit .... this currency shift is political in origin and has yet to be understood as permanent

i think they should look every 2 years to see the balance books say about maintaining profit levels,,,, or perhaps they should check currency flux on a weekly level. and adjust the fees 4 times a month ?.... isnt that how frequently they currently crawl up their customers .......?

The UK Pound is not the only one's currency that fluctuates, all currencies fluctuate. I have been hosting a dedicated gamming server for the past 15 years. I have to pay in $US, I rely on donations so my donations are in $US. It doesn't mater what ones exchange rate is, if they donate $US 10.00, I receive $US 10.00. My guess is they set up their business in the UK so they use UK Pounds. They only changes the were for Swedish currency. If currency fluctuations is a problem then it would be with all currencies. I feel this is a test case to see if they can increase their subscription across the board by 20% if they don't get a lot of flack from this one off hike. Only time will tell.

The price hikes were for both UK & Sweden:-

https://www.dpreview.com/news/8906931620/creative-cloud-subscribers-in-the-uk-and-sweden-can-expect-price-hikes-starting-next-month

While currencies all fluctuate, the GBP has seen a major shift. I'm not sure about Swedish Krona. So I can understand why there has been a change in the cost of the CC packs in the UK due to currency fluctuations.

However, it seems to me to be 100% related to Adobe's profit sheet reporting, which I have less sympathy for, vs manufacturers that put costs up due to currency effects when their raw materials have gone up - there are no raw materials involved in virtual software!

Lets just wait and see how long it will be before they increase their subscriptions across the board and what excuse they use. My prediction is within about six months

@PhotoUniverse
The price is always a major factor to many.
I believe several other programs give me the results I want. So I have had no need for Adobe's products.
I do believe that several other products are least as good.
Usually if composition and exposure are done right, editing should be very minimal, just a few seconds (assuming good hardware is used, especially lenses). Images taken under difficult lighting conditions, which is not the norm, maybe the exception,

I believe the other products are every bit as suitable for professional photographers as Photoshop. I am particularly confident about ACDSee Ultimate 10, PaintShop Pro, and Affinity Photo. However, for art directors and others whose need extends beyond bit mapped photo editing, I am less certain.

Corel needs to step up its game a bit with the CorelDraw suite, and Serif needs some time to fully develop the Affinity line into a professional grade graphics suite, but it is coming sooner than many would expect.

You mean besides Photo Gallery, StudioLine Photo, XnView MP, Mylio, Photo Supreme, ACDSee, iMatch, Capture One, Daminion, Phototheca? I presume quiet a few, but actually I prefer digiKam

Thumbs Plus is one of the most powerful cataloguing programs out there:
http://www.cerious.com

Are there any conversion programs from Lightroom to some other catalog program? I have thousands of images in Lightroom and have been worrying about that for some time. I chose Lightroom before Adobe went into the software rental business... I'm afraid that Adobe knows it would be much easier for me to just pay the darn rent for Lightroom and PS...

@PhotoRotterdam: Funny that with smaller projects and therefore smaller user base, users have more control over the product, so it might better fit your needs. The Lightroom search system is pretty awesome, but I really miss the timeline mode from digiKam. The metadata backend is also just a joke comparing the two. In the latest YOU can tailor it to your own needs, defining for each and every file type whether it should be stored in a proprietary system or should mess up your original files and with the same move your backup as well or put in a sidecar, that it won't be compatible with any other program. So I know the metadata thing is a mess, starting with the Exif without a standard TimeZone possibility, when only the US has some 6 different ones. But Adobe is not the one in my eyes who tries to solve this, but use the situation and lock everyone to their ecosystem, although in the long run it has some frustrating sideeffects. ...

Thank you, BaldCol. Victoria's explanation seems exhaustive. I for one am glad that it works this way. I understand my kids (and the rest of the world) can still access my work when I'm gone, just as they will inherite my negatives [and a few of my positive traits as well, I hope :) ].