Adobe to discontinue standalone CS products

Just been reading that the CS range, which includes Photoshop, will only be available from the Creative Cloud. This means you will no longer be able to buy the software from Adobe. instead you will pay them $49.99 a month to use the software. Stop paying and you no longer have access. As far as I can see Lightroom and Elements are not affected by this.

http://m.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=29809

Financial suicide I think. Photographers will simply choose something else to use, leaving only graphic designers using their software until they find an alternative.

Presumably Lightroom and Elements will follow in due course, if Adobe perceive this as a successful move.

Could signal a move to Aperture in due course!

There must be a lot of Photoshop installations on computers that are not connected to the internet.

"Q. What if the customer does not have Internet access at installation?
A. There are two options if the customer is offline at installation:
• If the customer’s computer is temporarily offline (e.g. he or she is travelling or has Internet connectivity
issues), the customer will have seven days after the first launch of the product to connect to the Internet
and log in with his or her Adobe ID.
• If the customer’s computer is permanently offline (e.g., he or she works in a secure environment), the customer
will need to complete an Offline Activation process using an Internet-enabled device, also within
seven days of the first launch of the product. See below for more information on the offline activation
process.
Note: The offline activation process is not supported for prerelease products."




This would seemingly remove this market at a stroke. ..Very strange

dave k

Certainly puts an end to the pirate copy. I think its a good idea in principle. Though for a one off user like me. The subscription cost would certainly be a no no. Good news for the likes of Serif.

LightZone at one time a retail competitor to PS will shortly
be available for for FREE for Windows, Linux and eventually
Mac.

The Windows version has been through Beta testing and is due to
be released as soon as they sort out a compile problem

Gee them up a bit by Registering for FREE at.....
http://lightzoneproject.org/

The website is a bit messy at present, but it's being
re-written.

-

This could also affect a lot of plugin developers, many of which run best on photoshop.

Photoshop as a standalone will cost $19.99 a month compared to buying it outright at the moment for £631 I am pleased about this, I am currently running the student version which cost £206 and was getting to be rather worried about the next upgrade cost, this makes it easier for me and is actually cheaper over three years

I think the only people who are genuinely disappointed will be those who use pirated copies and have never paid for LR or PS as the subscription method will make pirating a PITA.

The subscription method makes PS available to everyone at a reasonable cost without the huge initial financial outlay.

I think it's a good idea too, two pieces of crucial business software I use operate this way and you always know you are using the latest version

I'm surprised this has taken so long. I don't think it will stop piracy completely but it will help and it actually represents pretty good value.

As a software developer I think anything which curtails theft is a good thing.

I can quite happily manage on CS5 for a long time yet. As things stand at the moment it wouldn't be cost effective for me to pay a subscription, and yes, I did pay for my copy of CS5!

I'd be interested to know where you got the $19.99 from. Maybe the more expensive prices I've seen are for the CS suite. To be honest I switched to Elements couple of years back because I realised I wasn't using all the features of the full blown Photoshop

I'm glad Adobe have made photoshop a standalone option rather than having to subscribe to the whole creative suite as before. I upgraded to CS5 and got the free upgrade to CS6 at a very reasonable cost last year so am in no hurry to subscribe yet, but when tempting new features become available at least I wont have a huge outlay in one go to gain access to these features. I don't believe its financial suicide for Adobe, I've tried some alternatives and they are simply not as good, Adobe have an excellent product and they are the industry standard with good reason. It would be good if the bundled lightroom with photoshop in the subscription or gave the option for this as a small increase in subscription.

UK pricing is here

For just Photoshop it's £17.58 a month or the full suite is £27.34 a month if you are upgrading from CS3 updwards, I'd imagine this price is open to USD / GBP fluctuation ...

The dodgy copies of Photoshop I've seen (I don't run one!) have been based on the 30 day trial with a hack to stop them timing out after 30 days. This will still happen with future versions so nothing to do with piracy I think ...

How?