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Adobe Tests Doubling the Price of Photography Plan With Photoshop and Lightroom

mollyc said:
No one here ever said that painting and photography was the same thing. I'm not really sure why you think people using Photoshop are "painting" their photos. The program isn't called PAINTshop (I mean, that program does exist, but for this conversation we are talking about Lightroom and Photoshop, and the differences).

If I go to the beach and want a portrait of my kids with a sweeping sunset, I can't very well clear out the other 20-100 people there just so I can get a photo. I can strategically place my kids not near others, then clone out everyone later. I also might find a pretty alley of flowers somewhere, but on the other side is an ugly building. Flipping and cloning to the other side in post fixes that. It isn't painting. It's having a vision while taking a photo of what I want the end result to be, and then having the necessary post processing skills to acheive that vision. Not every location is a dream. yes, sometimes I do shoot things exactly as they are, but with not-in-studio portrait photography in particular, there are often things you simply can't control in camera, but take about 14 seconds to fix in post. I'm very active in some photo forums with working professionals - not just "pros" but people sponsored by Nikon, Canon, Sony, Profoto......these people ALL edit their photos in PS. They don't just stick to LR.

Times have moved on from old school darkrooms, and while many people are going back to film, that doesn't mean using PS is bad, or wrong, or silly, or amateur.
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This fullfills painting fully. You are changing the reality the photo displayed by creating a painting that fits your "vision".

And I stand by it: a *photographer* who need Photoshop is bad as the corrections in the raw developer are more then enought to correct small errors while taking the photo. If you want to create paintings or collages you need something like Photoshop but you are no photographer - you are a painter...
 
Dranix said:
This fullfills painting fully. You are changing the reality the photo displayed by creating a painting that fits your "vision".

And I stand by it: a *photographer* who need Photoshop is bad as the corrections in the raw developer are more then enought to correct small errors while taking the photo. If you want to create paintings or collages you need something like Photoshop but you are no photographer - you are a painter...
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That is not the definition of painting. And you are delusional if you think any magazine cover hasn’t been taken through photoshop, regardless of genre.
 
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warp9 said:
This is not true. The old price of Photoshop CS Standard was $699. Annual upgrades were $199. If you add the purchase price + two upgrades, it would cost $1,097.

It would take over 9 years to break even under the current CC subscription plan, and that doesn't even include Lightroom or storage. When that 9 years ends, you would have to pay another $199 for the next version (almost 2 years under the subscription model).

The bottom line is, subscriptions are not more expensive and are often cheaper than buying outright. It just feels more expensive because you see the charge every month.
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Good point. With similar calculation I would really pay for a LR only edition for $3 a month but there is no such option. For most hobbyists LR might be enough.
 
mollyc said:
Times have moved on from old school darkrooms, and while many people are going back to film, that doesn't mean using PS is bad, or wrong, or silly, or amateur.
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Do you think that retouching and manipulation are the exclusive domain of digital photography?
 
I don’t understand what the fuss is about. The $10/month photography plan is still available with 20GB of cloud storage as it’s always been. The $20/month plan is for 1TB of cloud storage. What has changed?

This is on their site as I write this...

i-795JkKM-XL.jpg
 
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seadragon said:
I don’t understand what the fuss is about.
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The fuss is that they hid the $10 plan on their website and new users only see the $20 plan. They are testing how well it’s received. If the plan goes well, they’ll probably drop the already hidden $10 plan and rip off everyone else eventually.

Screen_Shot_2019_05_02_at_12.51.43_PM.png


"Some customers in certain regions are still able to access the old prices, but Adobe appears to be testing the new prices before rolling it out to all users."

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/2/18526985/adobe-creative-cloud-lightroom-photoshop-plan-price-hike
 
Shirasaki said:
I don't know why you assume I am going on a month to month contract, as I clearly sign up an annual contract with Adobe when starting the subscription. My bank statement clearly shows Adobe raises the price mid-year from $24.99 to $27.49. I understand the sub price is subject to change, but I was shocked that they changed the price during the contract without any email notification or anything. Maybe price update was up on the website, I never know.
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My plan increased a few months ago when Adobe started adding sales tax to the plan on my billing statements.
 
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mollyc said:
Nope. I don’t. Which is why I don’t think what I do is “painting.”
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I think any photographer is well served by reading Ansel Adam's books, in particular "The Negative" and "The Print." Although the specific techniques don't necessarily apply to digital photography, the working philosophy does.

Ansel Adams was a master printer, though, and sometimes he needed the skills. "Moonrise, Hernandez, NM" was reported a bear to print, and require a lot of dodging and burning to get it right.

Beyond that, though, there were plenty of other folks who were masters at hand retouching negatives. Most of the materials to do it are no longer made, and modern film really isn't designed for it either(Kodak TXP320, which now is only made in sheet, although I have some 220 in the freezer). Still, it certainly could be done. A common application was removing facial flaws and blemishes from portraits. Aside from the materials, there are even special tools to do it-a common one is special light box with clips to hold a 4x5 or 8x10 piece of film and a motor that "vibrates" the box very, very gently-the simplest techniques often involved either using a small, sharp knife to remove emulsion, or using a fine point, sharp, and soft pencil to color in areas(and blend them to the surrounding). There are also dyes to use in the same way on color film.
 
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I think I might eventually go the Corel route. I bought the suite in the 90s. At least they give you the option of a sub or buying outright. They have a free trial too.
 
warp9 said:
This is not true. The old price of Photoshop CS Standard was $699. Annual upgrades were $199. If you add the purchase price + two upgrades, it would cost $1,097.

It would take over 9 years to break even under the current CC subscription plan, and that doesn't even include Lightroom or storage. When that 9 years ends, you would have to pay another $199 for the next version (almost 2 years under the subscription model).

The bottom line is, subscriptions are not more expensive and are often cheaper than buying outright. It just feels more expensive because you see the charge every month.
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The thing is, why upgrade?
Most of the new features aren’t used, and there exist work arounds for these new features.
The key features of e.g Photoshop, which are the ones used over +/- 90% of the time, exist since 199x.
So, you’re paying over and over for the same thing.
Or. e.g. after 15-20 years, you decide to open older projects. There will be no way to open them, if Adobe isn’t around with their license servers. Subscription sucks, but it’s a good way to milk users.

So, better install cs6 in a Virtual Machine with older macOS version, and slowly move over to Affinity.
 
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It is unacceptable of Adobe to "test" pricing. It's like saying "lets see how much we can dupe these fools into paying". Of course they don't have the spin experts Apple has.
 
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macduke said:
The comments are going to be filled with a lot of upset users.

Photographer: Doesn't blink at spending $1500-5000 on a new lens, or $3000-5000 on a new camera body, or $300-800 on a new tripod, or $400-900 on a new flash, or $150 a pop on new UHS-II SD cards, or $800-3000 on a Thunderbolt RAID setup and SSDs, or $3000-7000 on a new Mac, or $800-2000 on a second and third display, or thousands of dollars on lighting equipment and backdrops and travel and paying models and grips.

Also photographer: Freaks out at having to pay Adobe a couple hundred bucks a year to edit, organize, share, and store all of their photos.

Y'all suck.
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This may be news for you, but I betcha most subscribers are regular people like me, who only need PS or LR every once in a while, while taking photos on an iPhone or a lower-end DSLR. The harcore professionals will maybe account for like 20%, in my opinion. I pay 9.99 a month, but I guarantee you, that’s as much as I am gonna pay. Even for that price I constantly question whether I do really need it.

So, dear Adobe; I can either pay you <$120 a year or nothing at all. Your call...
 
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Wildkraut said:
The thing is, why upgrade?
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If you don't want to upgrade then don't upgrade, but don't mistake your experience with someone else. If new features don't appeal to you and you have no use for them, you should question whether you're using the right software.

Wildkraut said:
Most of the new features aren’t used...
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By you. I use them and so does the average pro user, who Photoshop is targeted towards. Just because you can almost afford something doesn't mean it's appropriate for you.
 
Colpeas said:
I pay 9.99 a month, but I guarantee you, that’s as much as I am gonna pay. Even for that price I constantly question whether I do really need it.

So, dear Adobe; I can either pay you <$120 a year or nothing at all. Your call...
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I bet a lot of people are in this group. I certainly am. I think the one major thing Adobe has going for it in this group is Lightroom CC on iPad and cloud sync back to the desktop. That’s why I’m willing to shell out the current price. I wouldn’t accept double though.
 
farewelwilliams said:
Test result: users are extremely angry
Adobe CEO: "Great!"
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Angry, but still buy it because it's a standard app for anyone in the business.

With subscriptions, most use the Laffer Curve model. Where can they maximize what they can charge until subscribers start to drop.
Streaming services use it. Over time, they slowly raise the monthly subscription in small increments, and get to the price they believe people will pay without losing too many subscribers. This is why it's probably a "test". They don't know, so let's raise the price to see.
 
Just adding my 2 cents, in the off chance that someone of consequence at Adobe is reading this thread: As a hobbyist, I subscribe to the $9.99 a month photography plan. Accepting that most things go up in price over time, I might go along with an increase of a few %, but a 2X increase is out of the question, especially as the higher amount of cloud storage is of no interest to me. Also, the fact that the current $9.99 plan is apparently hard to find on Adobe's website only makes me more reluctant to keep supporting them.
 
hfg said:
My plan increased a few months ago when Adobe started adding sales tax to the plan on my billing statements.
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Easy solution. Move to a country where they don't have sales tax.

Of course, it'll probably have no infrastructure either.
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Shirasaki said:
They will, quietly, until you pay attention to your bank account statement.
My student plan started from $15.99/mo, then raised to $25.99, then $31.99, within a year. Then, one day, I saw a whopping $51.99/mo. I was like m..k? Immediately cancelled and re-subbed to the same plan so that the price was $28.99/mo. Borderline ridiculous.
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Something doesn't seem right with this story. I don't mean that you're lying, but either you signed up for something other than you thought you signed up for or something really screwy happened on Adobe's end that triggered escalating pricing changes. Errors do happen and companies do screw up on the back end sometimes.

I've had a Creative Cloud membership for years and they've never adjusted the price on me ever. I even talked them down to giving me $29/month intro pricing for several years and they honored it.
 
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seadragon said:
Well, today I just upgraded from my 20 GB photography plan to the 1 TB on purpose. I happen to like Adobe products and I don't have an issue supporting them by subscription and getting the very latest updates. But that's me.
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I do agree that for some apps, a subscription model makes sense. The developer doesn’t have to agonise over which new features to exclude from the older app to make it “worth it” for the user. You also don’t have a scenario where a fraction of your user base is on the newer app while the rest are still on the older one and you are forced to support both.

When everyone is on a subscription-based app, you just need to focus on updating that one app well. It does help to align many of the priorities that used to divide developers and consumers.

The downside is that if I use an app only intermittently, it might feel like I am not getting my money’s worth, but maybe that’s more of a mindset issue.
 
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If it costs me more than it did, I will just cancel and find a pirate version.. Its their call..
 
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