I swore blind I never would do this!!

And yet, here I am sitting here with a brand new prepaid annual Creative Cloud membership. when I reviewed the budget for this year, I decided that, Pension or not, I could do this. What's $10 a month? I can waste that much in a day. Couldn't justify *not* doing it, any longer. And its good that there is a Lightroom for my iPad, too. I think, in the end, thats what swung me around, when that was released is when I started thinking seriously about signing up. I take a long time to make decisions :)

*Rather large grin*
 
I've been on CC for about 12 months and am happy with the deal and no large upgrade costs. I also own LR5 and PS CS6 so if I bail I still have that software to reinstall. I do admit I'm a sucker for software purchases and upgrades. :(
 
I swore the same thing because I thought it was all cloud based and you had to use an online program. But I've been paying them for a year and I I just renewed. Nor do I regret it (after figuring out why I couldn't print from inside Photoshop) I've never been able to afford a new version of Photoshop, and it is may program of choice for completing my pictures. The last version I had was old enough that it would not save directly to a 2 TB external drive, the storage source from which I do most of my processing. Too big to be recognized, I guess. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Occasionally the software does something stupid, and I've found keeping the Creative Cloud desktop appliction from opening at startup saves me a lot of headaches. But that's my story.

Luke. I just put an SSD in my old computer and upgraded the i3 to an i7. It's like a new machine. The used i7 and the 256GB SSD where $150. I did the labor myself. It's a cheap upgrade while you wait for your new computer. (OK, that i7 I put in is a first generation i7, as later ones are not compatible, but it really got things moving, even before switching out the drive.
 
Sue, glad you are happy with it. Still holding out here. Aperture and PS6 seem to do all I need. But may have to switch if the new Apple Photos app is a disappointment.
 
The final straw for me was when I decided to manually export from iPhoto, as opposed to allowing the built in export too to do it. It was at that point that I realised the mess that goes on behind the scenes. Delete something? It leaves a folder behind. I wondered why some things were out of order, in the wrong year or month... A mess in the back end. Files which have had their creation dates changed arbitrarily... All kinds of annoying things which you mostly wouldn't notice if you never wanted to move out of the iPhoto/aperture system. I suspect some of the problem is to do with both apps accessing the same library.

Anyway, still organising, but happy to have the goods :)
 
So after the 1st year is up is the payment the same each month? I am due to re-new in a few months time and assumed it would at least double in price. If it stays the same then I'll carry on.
 
So after the 1st year is up is the payment the same each month? I am due to re-new in a few months time and assumed it would at least double in price. If it stays the same then I'll carry on.
I took out a subscription at £8.78 a month in November 2013 using my work Adobe ID (although I was paying) - I have loads of Adobe products for work and it was easier. I decided I should really have my own id for photography stuff so I cancelled that subscription and took out my own last month. It's now £8.57 a month which was a pleasant surprise.
 
I'm still holding out, and hope to be able to do so until I retire. I use Illustrator for my work, and there are no other applications that can open Illustrator files. And after Adobe bought (and killed) Freehand, there are no other technical drawing applications that can perform the same job on a Mac. So if I sign up and then ever stop handing over the "protection" money to Adobe, they hold all of my files hostage, and I lose access to all of the work that I've ever done in Illustrator.

Yes, I can back save the files as PDFs, but then I lose all layer (and some other) information in the files.

So it's going to be snowing in hell before I succumb to their hostageware scheme.
 
The price stayed the same for me in December when I renewed. Much as I enjoy it, I wouldn't have paid very much more to keep it. I think Adobe heard that loud and clear when people were voicing those fears at the start and indicating that it was a deal at $10, but not at more.
 
I'm still holding out, and hope to be able to do so until I retire. I use Illustrator for my work, and there are no other applications that can open Illustrator files. And after Adobe bought (and killed) Freehand, there are no other technical drawing applications that can perform the same job on a Mac. So if I sign up and then ever stop handing over the "protection" money to Adobe, they hold all of my files hostage, and I lose access to all of the work that I've ever done in Illustrator.

Yes, I can back save the files as PDFs, but then I lose all layer (and some other) information in the files.

So it's going to be snowing in hell before I succumb to their hostageware scheme.

Thats how I felt about it. But, I decided that since I have no intention of using their storage space, my files are mine to do with as I wish. For example, my photographs are now happily ensconced in Lightroom, and I'll use Photoshop (and various plugins) for editing. I don't think its quite true that your files are held hostage. Its not like they suddenly disappear from your computer if you bail out from the scheme.
 
I don't think its quite true that your files are held hostage. Its not like they suddenly disappear from your computer if you bail out from the scheme.
Unfortunately it is true. While it's true that the files do still reside on my computer, if I stop paying "ransom" for them monthly, I will be unable to open or edit them. At least with Photoshop you can save your files as jpgs or tiffs and open them in any number of other applications. But with Illustrator, there really is no way to be able to open and edit them in any other application. So once I stop paying for the subscription, I'm locked out. Yes, they're on my hard disk, but I no longer have access to them.

I've written to Adobe about this, and their response was, essentially: tough luck, pay us.
 
Unfortunately it is true. While it's true that the files do still reside on my computer, if I stop paying "ransom" for them monthly, I will be unable to open or edit them. At least with Photoshop you can save your files as jpgs or tiffs and open them in any number of other applications. But with Illustrator, there really is no way to be able to open and edit them in any other application. So once I stop paying for the subscription, I'm locked out. Yes, they're on my hard disk, but I no longer have access to them.

I've written to Adobe about this, and their response was, essentially: tough luck, pay us.

OH DEAR that is very nasty. Are you not able to save those files in other formats? Mind you, I guess Illustrator is the industry standard and nobody wants to look at alternatives anymore. Corel Draw used to be a viable option but I suppose their format is also proprietary and not transportable to other apps, either. I can't draw to save my life so its never been an issue for me :-/
 
I'm really enjoying the freedom of not having to use Aperture or iPhoto. I'm also finding it easier to spot duplicates in Lightroom, than I ever did in the Apple apps. I wonder why that is...

Anyway I have weeded the dupes (and halved the size of my minuscule collection) and am now creating Collections for sync with Lightroom mobile, and also to make it easier to decide whats actually worth keeping (not much, on first glance. I'll keep all the people shots I have, they are 90% friends and family and they have their own collection.

I have over 500 shots of the cats, and really... do I need that many to know what wonderful companions they were? No, I don't. I'll choose the best dozen or so and dump the rest. And so on. The process is laborious, but its a perfect time, on the cusp of the downgrade to Mavericks, and the new subscription to CC. I don't think I'll be doing much shooting at the moment. I don't want to add more to the mess, just yet :) However, its proceeding apace and I expect to be done with it by Monday.
 
OH DEAR that is very nasty. Are you not able to save those files in other formats?
As I mentioned, you can save Illustrator files as pdfs, but then you lose much of the information contained in them. And you also have to have the foresight to convert your files before your subscription runs out. And what with almost 25 years of files in my archives, that task seems Sisyphean now. Or at least Herculean. :rolleyes:

Believe me, ever since Adobe revealed their nefarious scheme, I've been frantically searching around for an alternative. No luck so far. :shakehead:
 
I've just (well late last night) discovered that if you use Lightroom mobile, your files end up in the adobe cloud anyway. And then, they get passed down to your iPad. This is all very well but its as slow as a wet week and really not worth persisting with (after 4 hours, only 10 photos had arrived on the iPad). Better off with a different cloud solution if you must have cloud. I must not. So I have reverted to using Photosmith (in 4 hours, everything was there, via wifi), although, now, half my reason for subscribing was to get Lightroom mobile. I don't think I'll be resubscribing next year, and will probably revert to whatever option Apple throws at us, in spite of how much I detest the way the apple apps manage photos.
 
Unfortunately it is true. While it's true that the files do still reside on my computer, if I stop paying "ransom" for them monthly, I will be unable to open or edit them. At least with Photoshop you can save your files as jpgs or tiffs and open them in any number of other applications. But with Illustrator, there really is no way to be able to open and edit them in any other application. So once I stop paying for the subscription, I'm locked out. Yes, they're on my hard disk, but I no longer have access to them.

I've written to Adobe about this, and their response was, essentially: tough luck, pay us.

The nature of proprietary files more than of the Cloud program. I have my raw .orf files imported from my camera, and any program that will open Olympus raw files will open them. I process them in lightroom and save them as 16 bit tiffs, and again, if I drop Photoshop tomorrow, I can (and have) opened tiffs saved from it in any application that handles Tiffs. I save almost nothing in Photoshops native file for that very reason.

And as I said earlier, I don't store anything in the Cloud -- whether it be Microsoft's cloud (I disable their windows 8 Microsoft signin for a local account) or Adobe's cloud or anyone else's. Just don't trust it. For anything I do want specifically to share online there is Smugmug and the various forums, but that is not saving my documents to nevernever land by default.
 
The nature of proprietary files more than of the Cloud program. I have my raw .orf files imported from my camera, and any program that will open Olympus raw files will open them. I process them in lightroom and save them as 16 bit tiffs, and again, if I drop Photoshop tomorrow, I can (and have) opened tiffs saved from it in any application that handles Tiffs. I save almost nothing in Photoshops native file for that very reason.

And as I said earlier, I don't store anything in the Cloud -- whether it be Microsoft's cloud (I disable their windows 8 Microsoft signin for a local account) or Adobe's cloud or anyone else's. Just don't trust it. For anything I do want specifically to share online there is Smugmug and the various forums, but that is not saving my documents to nevernever land by default.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you're saying there, Larry. But my problem with Adobe's CC subscription scheme has nothing to do with the cloud nor with online storage. My Illustrator files have not, and never will be stored in the cloud. The problem I face is if I were to subscribe, all of the files that I create thereafter, wherever they may be stored, become un-openable and un-editable once I stop paying Adobe for the subscription. Adobe, in effect, owns every drawing I create. There are no other applications that will open those files. And if I stop paying for the subscription, I can no longer open, nor edit them.

Photoshop and Lightroom users don't face that problem, as raw and .psp files are able to be opened in any number of other applications. Illustrator (.ai) files are not.
 
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