Medium format use: Is photoshop indispensable ?

[jagsiva]

But I don't have to buy my electricity or oil from a single company. I could even install equipment to generate my own electricity.

But this is a bit different. Perhaps it would be clearer this way. If you paint a picture, how would you feel sending a check to the paint manufacturer every month to view the painting?

Might be a long ride for you unfortunately. You pay a monthly subscription to somebody to give you an IP address to reach the rest of us already, whether it is on your local loop or on a mobile device. This concept now extends to software. SW maintenance, and currency with new hardware, OS, standards etc. is an expensive proposition, and only gets more so with complexity. This is NOT including new features or improvements on existing ones. Subscriptions (or per per use) will be the norm for most sw companies going forward.

I cannot say that Adobe went about this in the most customer friendly way, but it is an inevitable outcome.

The painting analogy is fallacious. If your file is stored in JPG or TIFF, you can view it whenever and however you like. However, you are talking about not just viewing, when you extend this to .PSD format.

I don't use PS too much, but extending the analogy to C1, i can say with certainty that when I take the same RAW file with C1 3.1 and C1 8.1, the later gives me much better results, and I am happy to pay P1 in the form of a subscription or upgrade for the improvement. I do the same with Adobe.

 

[Don Libby]

Good point on C1; I can't member the last time I had an actual disk to load...

 

[Egor]

Good point on C1; I can't member the last time I had an actual disk to load...

Inevitable evolution
I remember storing files on floppy, then Syquest, then MO, then Bernouli, then Jazz, then CD, then DVD, then hard drives and thumb drives, and now mostly cloud distribution (and I pay monthly for the privilege, btw)

I remember a few clients who paid us to transfer from each new storage paradigm. When we got to CD I remember a few telling me that "this was it! This will be the final storage medium once and for all!" I remember telling them something to the effect of "don't count on it. Besides, its not the storage medium that matters but the machines and formats that can read it. I stopped listening after MO (Magneto Optical) anyway...I knew

Now we use "the cloud" and pay subscription in one way or another. Is this the end of the line? Not listening!

So I pay a monthly retainer for so many things: my software, my equipment leases, my studio leases, vehicles...etc. I don't get it. Its just a cost factor among many

 

[GrahamWelland]

Good luck reading those Syquest, MO, Berouli, Jazz and first generation CD discs btw ... assuming of course that you kept the drives and legacy OS versions that would actually run the drivers.

 

[Egor]

Good luck reading those Syquest, MO, Berouli, Jazz and first generation CD discs btw ... assuming of course that you kept the drives and legacy OS versions that would actually run the drivers.

Believe it or not, Graham, I did just that!
I keep a bunch of legacy machines like old macs and PCs, and all those drives, and SCSI cards and connectors, as well as DDS tape and backup readers in a storage shed.
An important client of mine came to me last year with a box full of Syquest 44,88, and the vaunted "200MB Syquest" cartridges. Said to me, "Our entire library of images and catalogues are on these, can you get them off and updated to a modern disc so we can use them?"
I said "absolutely, but it will cost you $5k!" The guy looked at me like I was pulling his leg until I explained to him all that I had done over the years to keep and store and maintain that stuff, and how hard it would be to open and update each and every file (not just the bitmap image files, those are easy, but Pagemaker 5 files, Word Perfect Files, Freehand 3 files, Corel Draw files...etc ..I kept all that too! When I was done esplainin, he thought it was a fair price.

 

[MGrayson]

What I don't understand is: If the subscription model is such a great value for consumers, and if there are a bunch of irrational emotional types who would pay the ridiculously high price of a permanent license, then why isn't it an option? It would, by these arguments, make Adobe a lot more money.

On the other hand, if it is a much worse deal for consumers in the long run, I can see Adobe doing exactly what they're doing.

Partial answer to my own question: Equity markets tolerate different valuations for companies with different cashflow models, and this has nothing to do with consumers and everything to do with stock price and its effect on executive compensation.

As far as users' financial analysis, I don't think anyone is properly valuing the future odds of either price increases or corporate/server interruption. We all tend to believe in (and price accordingly) sunny days forever - until the crisis. Everyone thinks "I can just save everything to TIFFs", but when Adobe suddenly freezes you out due to technical glitch/bankruptcy/earthquake/whatever, it will suddenly seem different. Or a management shakeup puts someone in charge who thinks a 300% price increase is justified because there is no competition, or ... it's always the disaster that no one expects.

We have all sold Adobe a basket of options, and we are valuing them at zero. This is historically a very very bad idea. Corporations love us for this.

Oh, once I give in, I'll be giving justifications, too. We're all human.

--Matt

 

[KeithL]

I'll hang on and use CS6 as long as possible. Photoshop and Dreamweaver.

But a question, does anyone know how long Adobe will be issuing new camera updates or are committed to issuing new camera updates for Photoshop CS6?

 

[gazwas]

If I sign up for the photographers subscription now (PS CC 2015 and LR5) what happens when Lightroom 6 gets released or CC 2016? I know maintenance updates are part of the CC service but do I have to pay to update to the latest program version?

 

[GregMO]

Partial answer to my own question: Equity markets tolerate different valuations for companies with different cashflow models, and this has nothing to do with consumers and everything to do with stock price and its effect on executive compensation.

As far as users' financial analysis, I don't think anyone is properly valuing the future odds of either price increases or corporate/server interruption. We all tend to believe in (and price accordingly) sunny days forever - until the crisis. Everyone thinks "I can just save everything to TIFFs", but when Adobe suddenly freezes you out due to technical glitch/bankruptcy/earthquake/whatever, it will suddenly seem different. Or a management shakeup puts someone in charge who thinks a 300% price increase is justified because there is no competition, or ... it's always the disaster that no one expects.

We have all sold Adobe a basket of options, and we are valuing them at zero. This is historically a very very bad idea. Corporations love us for this.

--Matt

That is the big unknown question.. Abobe is a monopoly on the high end side with what they produce. They are holding the Ace in their back pocket. When they feel "enough" subscribers have jumped on board & they need to show better numbers for their quarterly earnings reports, chances are good (or better yet, certain), the subscription price will increase & continue to do so.

For the hold outs..it's never been been about "$10/ month." It's the principal of purchasing a product for "X" and using it without the concern of the "deal" changing on them. Then making the freewill decision to pay again when they are ready.

The choice between the two models would have been great, but Abobe didnt decide to offer us a choice.

 

[Egor]

I think "what if" scenarios are not helpful. There are so many permutations. For instance, "What if" a solar flare emp takes out the electric grid? "What if" new net laws make isp's have to charge more than their customers are willing to pay? "What if" a camera company decides to give away its product for free and charge usage rights for every actuation of its shutter count? "what if" there is a zombie apocalypse? Will Get DPI still honor its commitment to keep its servers up??

"What if" Adobe goes under or decides to charge more than the majority of its clients can afford to pay?
Thats easy, the market has easy answers to that scenario and lean and hungry competitors are ready to pounce at every turn.

None of that matters in the long run, as I said, "What if" scenarios are not helpful in day2day operation and enjoyment of the art.

So iow, to quote my favorite Star Trek line: "Resistance is Futile, You will be assimilated"
Don't sweat it, come to the dark side...we have cookies!

 

[gazwas]

But...... What if Adode updates its software (full version not point version) what happens? Download new version and continue using under current supbscription?

 

[Egor]

Gazwas, I believe it is done by "application" and cross-platform wide so it wouldn't matter.
For instance, I began subscriber service with CS6 paying about $10/month per 2 licenses. I am still paying exact same except the Application Manager has updated me all along the way with both incremental and full version updates/upgrades. I love it actually because of the cross platform thing. One subscription covers both a Mac and a PC with latest versions of CC in my studio.

Now, in case of ZA (Zombie Apocalypse) I believe my subscription can be put on "hibernate" whilst we all get things "sorted"

 

[gazwas]

Gazwas, I believe it is done by "application" and cross-platform wide so it wouldn't matter.
For instance, I began subscriber service with CS6 paying about $10/month per 2 licenses. I am still paying exact same except the Application Manager has updated me all along the way with both incremental and full version updates/upgrades. I love it actually because of the cross platform thing. One subscription covers both a Mac and a PC with latest versions of CC in my studio.

Now, in case of ZA (Zombie Apocalypse) I believe my subscription can be put on "hibernate" whilst we all get things "sorted"

Thanks for the reply, I'm going to download the trial to see how improved CC is over my current CS6 version of PS now I know if I decide to pay subscription and LR6 gets released I'll still get the latest version at no extra cost.

CC desktop thing installed and downloading PS now.......

 

[Egor]

Another cool thing you can do is disable it on one computer and enable it on another. So say its end of the day at work and you want to keep working on a file at home or on your laptop. No need to own extra subscriptions, just disable on your work machine and enable on your laptop (PC or Mac, whatever you got, same single subscription!)
Its pretty helpful that way.

 

[Chris Valites]

Photoshop will always be important to me with my workflow. Am I using Capture One as much as I can? Hell yes. The studio shot I'm working on of the Vespa I shot is going to be a multi shot composite (didn't have the right lighting gear...so I moved it around myself) and so a lot of nudging, liquifying, and so on has to be done.

But for my landscape work I mostly keep it all Capture One. The color management, local adjustments, the black and white tools, everything has improved to the point where you don't need NIK filters or anything like that. Unless you're really doing some compositing work, I'd say PS it not needed. (well, and panoramas, but there's other software out there that I just haven't tried yet, personally.)

There's a need, but indispensable really matters based on what you're shooting IMHO.

 

[gazwas]

Another cool thing you can do is disable it on one computer and enable it on another. So say its end of the day at work and you want to keep working on a file at home or on your laptop. No need to own extra subscriptions, just disable on your work machine and enable on your laptop (PC or Mac, whatever you got, same single subscription!)
Its pretty helpful that way.

CS6 does the exact same thing, deactivate to use on different machines.

I'm going to have a play with CC2014 over the next few days but initial impressions are its fixed a few tiny bugs I have with CS6 but apart from that I'm not seeing anything better than what I already have with CS6. I'm still puzzled why so many feel the need to upgrade to this unless they were on a much older version of PS?

The only benefit I can see to CC is if I rarely use a piece of software I can rent it for a month when I need it rather than pay full for a seldom used app which is cool.

Maybe when Lightroom 6 gets released I'll change my mind and switch from using Capture One?