Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
You're such a funny Adobe fanboy... 😁

I've been using the Affinity apps in my day-to-day professional work for several years now and these are often projects for large, well-known companies. I still kept Adobe just in case until recently. This spring I said goodbye to them with no regrets. It wasn't even about the money. I just naturally stopped using their software.

When people switch software, there is a big issue where all the problems and re-learning come first, but the advantages take a while to be noticed. This can make Adobe alternatives seem worse than they really are. But this actually works both ways. People who are used to Affinity would likely be baffled by all the problems with Adobe products.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Boeingfan
Adobe is a criminal organization. You HAVE to pirate Adobe software. Otherwise you support criminals.

Adobe made it very hard to cancel a subscription. That goes against EU laws and I am sure it also goes against US laws.
Once they switched to subscription, I bought Affinity and never looked back.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Skyscraperfan
It’s -50% here is Aus. Having said that, Adobe stink with their subscriptions and clouds. I’m trying to pry my partner off them and over to Affinity.
 
NEVER

...If you are having trouble leaving these bloodsuckers exploitative product subscription.. Upgrade to a different tier, and use the 14 day trial period to drop this hot garbage in the curb where it belongs...


Any pro attached to this dinosaur needs to have a serious introspective moment... They are developing Ai to replace you... Screw em.
 
Last edited:
Back in the day when the loading screen of Photoshop 3 and Illustrator 7 or whatever took ages to load, I would end up memorizing the names of the developer credits. They became familiar friends. I remember how some names would stick around as new ones were added. At some point all the familiar names went away, the bloat, greed, and ******tification began, now the credit list is a mass of Indian contractors and leadership is a bunch of bean counters. They can all go to hell. Do they know that they've become an organization where everyone hates their apps but is forced to use them. They won't last 5 years before they get disrupted.
 
Anyone know of a reasonable alternative to Adobe Audition for audio editing...or several?
 
Anyone know of a reasonable alternative to Adobe Audition for audio editing...or several?
You didn't say how you use Audition as that might impact the responses whether you like say Audacity for a free but a touch more limited than Audition or perhaps a Mac higher end software like Logic Pro. There are a handful of choices out there. Perhaps look up DaVinchi Resolve (sp).
 
Adobe is a criminal organization. You HAVE to pirate Adobe software. Otherwise you support criminals.

Adobe made it very hard to cancel a subscription. That goes against EU laws and I am sure it also goes against US laws.
How dumb are you? It's one button to cancel, you had to push more buttons to get yourself into subrciption.
 
  • Like
Reactions: gracjangk
How dumb are you? It's one button to cancel, you had to push more buttons to get yourself into subrciption.
I wont use the word criminal but I have seen people elsewhere commenting on challenges trying to cancel their subscription. I know at times if there is payments in question things get gummed up and others simply say the buttons to click somehow wont show up etc. I gather if you look up on a browser the suggest problem, you too will find some making the same complaint as Skyscraperfan.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Skyscraperfan
Too bad you can’t renew every year at this price…

Believe it or not, you can. There are two ways to do so.

Just cancel and within a month they'll send you an offer to renew at a discounted price. Keep holding out and they might give you the introductory price again.

Another way is to chat up their customer support and negotiate. How successful that negotiation will be probably depends on your usage profile. They know how much you use the apps. I barely use my Adobe suite. I'm paying a lot of money just to have it eat up space on my drive and they know this.

Granted, both of these methods depend on you being able to easily and comfortably walk away from Adobe products. If you truly need it to get your job done, they've got you. Just be sure to pass the costs along accordingly.

I only subscribe because every once in a while I get sent something by a client that I want to open easily. A few times a year I might edit an old Illustrator or InDesign file. That's the extent that I can say I'm an Adobe user and I made it clear I'd cancel in a heartbeat if I had to pay full price. Now I get offered an annual renewal that's a bit more than their introductory price.

It's still expensive given how little I use it, but it's the cost of doing business for me.
 
Last edited:
A large portion of photographers still use Adobe software because there is not a great alternative. Some of the other software is not subscription based but one has renewal rates that at the end of the day come close to the subscription model. Affinity, Pixelmator and others do a great job but are not data management software like Lightroom.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think their customer service is abhorrent. I prefer not to subscribe.
The photgrapher Lightroom subsciption is incredible value. Photosho, Lightroom CC (+ the cloud version) and you also get a website builder where you can host 5 websites. That solved a lot of the things I needed. I also bought the Affinity suite (1 and 2) and they are quite ok-ish. Publisher solves most of my need, but sometimes I'm reminded is not really a professional tool when there are some features missing. Photo on the other hand (PS alternative) is just frustrating and I can't really get into using it much.

As for video DaVinci is incredible and free. If I would need more then I would either get Final Cut Pro or just buy a DaVinci license, but I don't. So it works out for me.

In the end Lightroom is the things that mostly keeps me on the subscription, I need a good DAM.
 
  • Like
Reactions: orbital~debris
The best thing that everyone should do is support Adobe alternatives and insist that others maintain compatibility with them. "industry standard" is just corporate communism.

Surely you mean monopoly, not communism 🤣
 
I am more optimistic than you, I see an Apple version of Creative Cloud in the works
I don’t see them charging a monthly fee, nor I would trust them again with my photo library, but I hope you are right in the sense of having them commited to provide frequent and meaningful upgrades. I really do.
 
I stopped using Adobe the day they switched to subscription. I literally would have paid them thousands of dollars since then but instead they have received ZERO from me. Affinity does just fine and I have bought 2 rounds of their software.

The modern age requires constant push back on subscription hell or your money will be siphoned away without you even noticing. The mental overhead and anxiety of having active subscriptions is not tenable.

I understand some people need Adobe for their businesses or workflows, so if you're making a lot of money with their software then more power to you. But for me requiring the occasional graphic design or photo touch-up, its is not something I'm interested in at any price.
thanks for the tip! (Affinity)
 
I just had to subscribe to InDesign for the job that I cannot use Affinity Suite for. Didn't want to but it's well paid. ;)

But I still hate the feeling that once I stop paying in I won't even be able to use the software.

But I hate much more the app itself - compared to Affinity Publisher it is much less user friendly, and some tools behave in a strange and stupid ways...

And I hate this kind of subscription model.

Well, I better get back to work. ;)
 
Lots of consumers in here wanting professional software for nothing.

We live in the freetard era sadly. A whole generation grown up addicted to torrents, Temu shopping, staring at the phone, isolated and anti-social, demanding free money dropped on them, all you can eat music and movies for $10 a month and then cry when it becomes $11 a month.
 
And this is why I keep my old 2011 Mac Mini with Photoshop CS3 and CS4. Plenty powerful for what I do and I don't need to give Adobe any more of my money.
 
And this is why I keep my old 2011 Mac Mini with Photoshop CS3 and CS4. Plenty powerful for what I do and I don't need to give Adobe any more of my money.

32 bit apps. Nice...

This just says you don't have a good career in the creative field and all the jobs are going to people with a modern computer and modern apps. You're driving an Austin Mini Metro when everyone else is driving an Aston Martin. Fine if you just have a hobby and don't need to meet hard deadlines.
 
Last edited:
Have you ever used Apple One?
Nope, and I doubt I ever will. But this is different. They’ve been providing 13 years of updates to fcp for free, I don’t see them charging. People would move to more popular and industry standard solutions.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.