Future of Photoshop

[mdavis]

The recent Photoshop World was interesting and informative.  Adobe is sticking to their guns on the subscription based product, but it is also showing signs of failure and concern in offering a reduced subscription price to Photoshop-only users and throwing a copy of Lightroom in for "free."  But still no deal here.  I used a Lightroom demo and couldn't see a single thing that I wasn't already doing in ACR/Bridge/CS6.  It is a redundant product to CS6 users.

As Dan Margulis points out, CS6 is a very mature product.  There isn't much left to do to improve it outside of Curvemeister's features and some print-related features that Dan has complained about being missing for years.  I suspect that Adobe was struggling to provide fancy new features of sufficient value to push reluctant users to upgrade.  It wasn't working, so they tried to force it.  As consumers, we have lost the ability to evaluate the product before deciding if the price is fair, and now we are being asked (forced if you are a subscriber) to pay the price before deciding if you are getting value for your money, and risk losing the product if the cost outruns the value.  An additional consideration is that plug-in authors are backing off from CC, and the aftermarket tutorial authors are going to either have to set up subscriptions or face instantly obsolete books as CC is "continuously updated."  I feel sorry for people like Scott Kelby, Martin Evening and other fine authors.  Dan Margulis retired at the right time.

What I'm recommending to my friends is to buy CS6 while you still can, and buy Curvemeister to drive a nail in the coffin.  What else can Adobe possibly add to CC that we have to have?

[ggroess]

From my limited seat....

Unless there is a revolution in image processing and Adobe is the owner they have very little to add to processing images.  Think of the things you want to do to images...  Most of the "new" is in major image repair.  Blurred images, camera motion...Those images would have never even been a consideration 20 years ago because the film would not allow you to adjust after the fact.

Bad photography is still bad photography.  If you rely on PS to save your work you are in a hurt bag to begin with.

I will certainly be wrong in 10 years because I was totally wrong about digital in the first place.

IMHO
Greg

[tmanley]

I seem to be in the minority here.  I signed up for PSCC when it was first announced and have no regrets.  As a long-time PS user, I qualified for the $9.99 a month fee for PS alone.  Now they have announced that I will also get LR (which I already have) and Behance and 20 GB of storage.  For less than the cost of a coffee a day, I will have access to all of the upgrades that Adobe develops for PS and LR.  So far, there are a few interesting ones and it's still very early.  I could not work without LR, but then my main catalog has over 500,000 photos in it, all keyworded and searchable in an instant.  I can understand that less prolific photographers might not need a cataloging software but I definitely do and the fact that LR also allows me to edit in PS, create slideshows, export to print or web are all reasons I cannot work without it.

I have tried substitutes for PS and LR and they are just that, substitutes.  I would rather fight than switch!  ;-)  I hope subscription fees don't continue to go up, but everything else is subject to inflation so I assume PSCC is, too.

Just a happy PSCC user here,

Tina

[sjordan93436]

This has been beaten to death...  a few comments.

When someone complains about the cost, they are really complaining about the quality. 

Short take:  I will probably subscribe to the $10 / month plan and groan a little. 

Different view: this move even with a retreat is not welcome in the add-in world or the tutorial world. 

Adobe watching:  They screwed up.  The biggest value to a monopoly is not to maximize the short term income, but to maximize the longevity. You can charge a high price, but you need to keep the customer happy.  Milk, not gouge, the customer.  A consumer tolerates a benevolent dictator, but remembers a evil gouging monopolist. 

I also think that Adobe has fallen for their own sales pitch.  Some say that. "I am a great photographer.  Lightroom is all I need for 95% of my images."  Lightroom was not a subscription program.  LR is much better than before, but every one of my important photos goes through Photoshop. 

[ggroess]

(Begin Dead Horse Beating )
As the dead horses line up to be beaten I think the best solution would be....

1) Allow renters to rent.  They get the benefits they want and no one else has to feel slighted. It works for them and they are happy. They get immediate updates and enhancements 24X7

2) Allow people to purchase the latest version at whatever fixed cost they assign.  Then only fix bug for those seats same as before.  No enhancements and no new features.  Every two to three years offer them an update package at a reasonable cost and update them when they choose to get the new features.  They pay the same rate as the renters but schedule it to be every 2-3 years and they do not lose the access to the software they own.  They get quarterly bug fixes and nothing else until they wait out the 2-3 years and schedule an upgrade.

Adobe has to have 2 different teams working on the problem in any case...one designing and adding new features and one tracing and fixing bugs.  The current system bundles the updates and upgrades and pushes them out...Most are bug fixes in any case which Adobe should support no matter the costs.

If you use the Check for updates you get updates.  If you use the cloud and update you get features and updates.  This should be no brain fix for Adobe to do.

This solves the upgrades I do not want complaint and allows those that like the rental model to continue un-user bashed.

(End  Dead Horse Beating)
Greg  :o