Thanks, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole with a corporation with the kind of ethics that Adobe has. I'll keep using CS5 until it no longer works with the latest Mac OS. Then, I sure hope I can retire.
Okay, got it. I can now see your objection is based on Adobe hate, not anything practical.
Sure. Easy. Just like letting some bruiser named Guido come into my office and telling me that he'd just HATE to see something happen to my all of my files. ;-P
Thanks, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole with a corporation with the kind of ethics that Adobe has. I'll keep using CS5 until it no longer works with the latest Mac OS. Then, I sure hope I can retire.
So you are going down a rabbit hole of your own making instead?
Either way, there is a rabbit hole.
I prefer to go down the rabbit hole that doesn't stress me out.
You are already billing your client for unarchiving the illustration and preparing to use it in new work. At least I hope you are. Like mstone says, build this into your fee. It's billable time and expense. That's the simple, easy and profitable solution.
However, if you don't want to bother with any of it, I make my living in Illustrator and I'd be happy to offer my assistance if and when you are sick of playing Adobe's game.
Well, I could explain it to you guys, but I can't understand it for you. If you're comfortable with the kind a acquiescence Adobe demands before you get to use their software, then who am I to disagree with you? I hope it works out for you.
Well, I could explain it to you guys, but I can't understand it for you. If you're comfortable with the kind a acquiescence Adobe demands before you get to use their software, then who am I to disagree with you? I hope it works out for you.
To get to ACTUAL LIGHTROOM CC FEATURES, which I am pretty sure have not been discussed at all in this comment section:
Do I understand correctly that once Lightroom builds an HDR or Panorama out of RAW files, the resulting file is a DNG with all the RAW editability that implies?
I sure hope so, one thing that always bummed me out about using the panorama or HDR tools is that the resulting file was just a regular raster file, with the RAW editability no longer there. And in panorama work, especially, the local exposure & tone adjustments become even more valuable. You might be shooting into the sun in one part of the frame and 90° to the sun into shade halfway through the pano.
You are already billing your client for unarchiving the illustration and preparing to use it in new work. At least I hope you are. Like mstone says, build this into your fee. It's billable time and expense. That's the simple, easy and profitable solution.
I know, right? Your long time clients love you. They will pay any reasonable expense to have you work for them again. Just bill them. I would suggest $100 extra to reestablish your Adobe ID. After all, you need to login to Adobe and click yes a few times. That has to take at least 3 minutes. Surely that would be covered with $100, if not, charge more.
Thanks for the tip, mstone. But I'm not likely going to do all that with the more than 10,000 illustrator files that now reside in my archives. Instead, I'm holding out hope that Affinity Designer will soon allow me to replace Illustrator, just as their Photo app looks like it will nicely replace Photoshop. Adobe is literally going to have to hold a gun to my head before I turn over access to my files to them. I'll keep upgrading Lightroom as long as it's available in stand-alone format. But it confounds me to see how many people seem perfectly willing to trust Adobe not to screw them.
Uhmmm, . . . that looks very nice!
Know of a good replacement out there for InDesign?
Perhaps these folks could work on a suite — page layout, vector illustration, image editing, and image processing/curation?
It confounds me how many people are perfectly willing to believe that $20/mo or whatever a single app goes for is 'getting screwed'
Anyone with a library of 10k Illustrator files he needs access to is clearly making some money with Illustrator. If it's worth your time to screw around transitioning that whole library to some other format, that's your business.
In my business, I prefer to make money and not sweat the corporate politics.
As you say, many professionals find getting screwed perfectly acceptable.
It's it's not such a bother when you can simply pass the screwing on to your clients.
Big dumb incumbents always want to move customers to a monthly subscription model with "features" that cause unnecessary lock-in. They think customers will not balk, but it only succeeds in a near monopoly situation.
Disruptive newcomers love such a situation. The bar is so low for pleasing customers: just let them pay you a reasonable fee, make a reasonable and unencumbered product, and let the customers own and have access to their own work product. Simple.
I understand for pros making a living off the software -- if there's an overall increase in cost, that will be reflected in increased rates. My problem is being a hobbiest who wants to use pro tools, I find it too expensive and dissauding. I don't want another subscription model. Right now I'm looking at Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo, and using Aperture till it stops.
I am not into renting either, so I bought all of Macphun apps and HDR darkroom 3. I also got pixelmator and fotor. For the price of 1 year of Ps and Ls I have pretty decent software on all of my macs
As you say, many professionals find getting screwed perfectly acceptable.
It's it's not such a bother when you can simply pass the screwing on to your clients.
Big dumb incumbents always want to move customers to a monthly subscription model with "features" that cause unnecessary lock-in. They think customers will not balk, but it only succeeds in a near monopoly situation.
Disruptive newcomers love such a situation. The bar is so low for pleasing customers: just let them pay you a reasonable fee, make a reasonable and unencumbered product, and let the customers own and have access to their own work product. Simple.
Trust me when I say that I know when I'm being screwed. As do my customers. To me it's a fraction of an hour of billing. For my clients, who mark me up at least 100%, it's even less than that. In a week I spend more on lunch and coffee than I do for a month of state of the art design software.
Yes, I've been a technical Illustrator for 28 years now, first using Aldus FreeHand (which Adobe bought and killed) before switching to Illustrator. The $20/mo. doesn't trouble me in the least. It's the fact that if I stop paying the $20/mo., I lose access to all of my files. I have clients who often want me to reuse older illustrations for new work. If Adobe can keep me from using those files, I'm screwed. It's not corporate politics. It's criminal extortion, or should be.
I re-read this comment and notice you say you aren't troubled by the payment, but are upset that when you stop paying you don't get the service anymore.
I re-read this comment and notice you say you aren't troubled by the payment, but are upset that when you stop paying you don't get the service anymore.
Seems simple: keep paying.
You already said you don't mind the payment.
Yes, it seems simple, until you think about it: What kind of company do you want to do business with? Is it one who extorts money from you by keeping you from accessing your own work if you stop paying, or is it one that allows you to decide if and when you want to pay for worthwhile upgrades? The choice is a no-brainer to me, and it baffles me how easily some manage to rationalize what Adobe has done.
I am fine doing business with Adobe on their terms.
If I no longer need access to CC, I'll stop paying.
When I do need access I'll continue to pay (or restart).
It's not extortion. Extortion would be not allowing you to use something you owned unless you paid something more.
Apparently you own a Mac and a perpetual license to an older version of the Creative Suite. That Mac and software will continue to work. It's your job to maintain that ecosystem if that snapshot of product and hardware is where you choose to plant your flag.
Adobe has changed the licensing model on their new products (CC). That is their right. Just like I can charge my clients by the hour, quote per project, monthly retainer or a combination of all the above. You can do the same thing.
Just kindly respect my decision to go with the program on Adobe's new model. I rather like it.
How would you feel about subscription models moving toward other areas? If you could no longer buy or own music or books, only pay a monthly fee to access media - are you fine with that?
In an extreme model there was a recent story of automakers wanting to prohibit self-repair or modification of vehicles (link) - maybe we shouldn't own vehicles, only lease?
There is probably some subscription service for books, too, but I don't know about such things.
None of these services have made it impossible to buy similar products outright if that's what you want to do.
The vendors might have exclusive content, but that doesn't mean you can't buy a car, book or track if you don't want to lease or subscribe to one. You might not get exactly the car, book or track you want unless you are willing to deal with the producer's business model, however.
I feel it is perfectly reasonable for product producers to change the way they do business. Monopoly concerns are something to look out for and Adobe is close to a monopoly in the professional creative design space. But the manifestation of a monopoly is ratcheting up prices unreasonably with no checks to keep pricing in-line. The thing is, Adobe's pricing model is reasonably close to inline with the former perpetual license model:
If you upgrade every new version, the subscription model saves money.
If you upgrade every other version the subscription model costs more.
If you never upgrade...well why should Adobe care? You bought the version you wanted, you already have it, you never have to pay Adobe again. Good for you, however, I'm not surprised Adobe hasn't factored you into their price modeling.
PS: I do have a copy of CS 5.5 Design Premium I'd be happy to sell to anyone who wants a perpetual CS license. My last customer who needed me to work in software so old it wasn't available through CC (you can download App versions back to CS6 through CC) has finally upgraded and I don't imagine ever needing to work natively in CS 5.5 again.
I understand for pros making a living off the software
Just estimating, but for pros, it is actually cheaper now than it was before. If you purchased the Master Collection it was like +/- $2,400 and then another +/- $1,000 every 18 months which works out to be over $100 per month over the first 3 years and you had to wait 18 months to get updates. Even then, not all the apps were significantly updated. That was annoying. Now it is only $50 a month and you get updates all the time. When Adobe first released the program it was only $29 per month so that lowers the 3 year comparison even more.
When they first announced the CC system, many people predicted that Adobe would slow down the updates once they had a captive customer base. The exact opposite has happened. We have been getting many upgrades and new apps as well. I am very pleased with the program and I plan to keep the subscription until I retire and then if I need to do something personal like an invitation or greeting card or web page, non-professional, I will use Affinity and Pixelmator, Coda and Opacity and a couple other apps I purchased to test out. Right now I need to use the same tools that all my professional peers are using.
If you could no longer buy or own music or books, only pay a monthly fee to access media - are you fine with that?
Just curious about people's opinions.
You mean like subscription streaming music and video services? I'm not sure there's a direct book equivalent (unless you count Audible audiobooks), though I guess libraries have similarities?
Subscription for unlimited access seems pretty popular.
To my mind, there is nothing bad in a situation when a person can afford paying more to get better quality. Lightroom is kinda classics and it's definitely worth its fee, as well as its plugin https://aurorahdr.com/ for HDR processing. 1,5 mln of downloads speaks by itself - photographers are not so poor if they can buy monthly subsribtions to photo editors, a camera, lenses and a Mac.
Comments
Thanks, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole with a corporation with the kind of ethics that Adobe has. I'll keep using CS5 until it no longer works with the latest Mac OS. Then, I sure hope I can retire.
Okay, got it. I can now see your objection is based on Adobe hate, not anything practical.
Sure. Easy. Just like letting some bruiser named Guido come into my office and telling me that he'd just HATE to see something happen to my all of my files. ;-P
Thanks, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole with a corporation with the kind of ethics that Adobe has. I'll keep using CS5 until it no longer works with the latest Mac OS. Then, I sure hope I can retire.
So you are going down a rabbit hole of your own making instead?
Either way, there is a rabbit hole.
I prefer to go down the rabbit hole that doesn't stress me out.
You are already billing your client for unarchiving the illustration and preparing to use it in new work. At least I hope you are. Like mstone says, build this into your fee. It's billable time and expense. That's the simple, easy and profitable solution.
However, if you don't want to bother with any of it, I make my living in Illustrator and I'd be happy to offer my assistance if and when you are sick of playing Adobe's game.
Well, I could explain it to you guys, but I can't understand it for you. If you're comfortable with the kind a acquiescence Adobe demands before you get to use their software, then who am I to disagree with you? I hope it works out for you.
Well, I could explain it to you guys, but I can't understand it for you. If you're comfortable with the kind a acquiescence Adobe demands before you get to use their software, then who am I to disagree with you? I hope it works out for you.
Working just fine. Very happy
To get to ACTUAL LIGHTROOM CC FEATURES, which I am pretty sure have not been discussed at all in this comment section:
Do I understand correctly that once Lightroom builds an HDR or Panorama out of RAW files, the resulting file is a DNG with all the RAW editability that implies?
I sure hope so, one thing that always bummed me out about using the panorama or HDR tools is that the resulting file was just a regular raster file, with the RAW editability no longer there. And in panorama work, especially, the local exposure & tone adjustments become even more valuable. You might be shooting into the sun in one part of the frame and 90° to the sun into shade halfway through the pano.
You are already billing your client for unarchiving the illustration and preparing to use it in new work. At least I hope you are. Like mstone says, build this into your fee. It's billable time and expense. That's the simple, easy and profitable solution.
I know, right? Your long time clients love you. They will pay any reasonable expense to have you work for them again. Just bill them. I would suggest $100 extra to reestablish your Adobe ID. After all, you need to login to Adobe and click yes a few times. That has to take at least 3 minutes. Surely that would be covered with $100, if not, charge more.
Thanks for the tip, mstone. But I'm not likely going to do all that with the more than 10,000 illustrator files that now reside in my archives. Instead, I'm holding out hope that Affinity Designer will soon allow me to replace Illustrator, just as their Photo app looks like it will nicely replace Photoshop. Adobe is literally going to have to hold a gun to my head before I turn over access to my files to them. I'll keep upgrading Lightroom as long as it's available in stand-alone format. But it confounds me to see how many people seem perfectly willing to trust Adobe not to screw them.
Uhmmm, . . . that looks very nice!
Know of a good replacement out there for InDesign?
Perhaps these folks could work on a suite — page layout, vector illustration, image editing, and image processing/curation?
It confounds me how many people are perfectly willing to believe that $20/mo or whatever a single app goes for is 'getting screwed'
Anyone with a library of 10k Illustrator files he needs access to is clearly making some money with Illustrator. If it's worth your time to screw around transitioning that whole library to some other format, that's your business.
In my business, I prefer to make money and not sweat the corporate politics.
As you say, many professionals find getting screwed perfectly acceptable.
It's it's not such a bother when you can simply pass the screwing on to your clients.
Big dumb incumbents always want to move customers to a monthly subscription model with "features" that cause unnecessary lock-in. They think customers will not balk, but it only succeeds in a near monopoly situation.
Disruptive newcomers love such a situation. The bar is so low for pleasing customers: just let them pay you a reasonable fee, make a reasonable and unencumbered product, and let the customers own and have access to their own work product. Simple.
I understand for pros making a living off the software -- if there's an overall increase in cost, that will be reflected in increased rates. My problem is being a hobbiest who wants to use pro tools, I find it too expensive and dissauding. I don't want another subscription model. Right now I'm looking at Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo, and using Aperture till it stops.
Trust me when I say that I know when I'm being screwed. As do my customers. To me it's a fraction of an hour of billing. For my clients, who mark me up at least 100%, it's even less than that. In a week I spend more on lunch and coffee than I do for a month of state of the art design software.
I'm not being screwed.
And if I am, what a screwing it is. I love it!
I re-read this comment and notice you say you aren't troubled by the payment, but are upset that when you stop paying you don't get the service anymore.
Seems simple: keep paying.
You already said you don't mind the payment.
I re-read this comment and notice you say you aren't troubled by the payment, but are upset that when you stop paying you don't get the service anymore.
Seems simple: keep paying.
You already said you don't mind the payment.
Yes, it seems simple, until you think about it: What kind of company do you want to do business with? Is it one who extorts money from you by keeping you from accessing your own work if you stop paying, or is it one that allows you to decide if and when you want to pay for worthwhile upgrades? The choice is a no-brainer to me, and it baffles me how easily some manage to rationalize what Adobe has done.
I am fine doing business with Adobe on their terms.
If I no longer need access to CC, I'll stop paying.
When I do need access I'll continue to pay (or restart).
It's not extortion. Extortion would be not allowing you to use something you owned unless you paid something more.
Apparently you own a Mac and a perpetual license to an older version of the Creative Suite. That Mac and software will continue to work. It's your job to maintain that ecosystem if that snapshot of product and hardware is where you choose to plant your flag.
Adobe has changed the licensing model on their new products (CC). That is their right. Just like I can charge my clients by the hour, quote per project, monthly retainer or a combination of all the above. You can do the same thing.
Just kindly respect my decision to go with the program on Adobe's new model. I rather like it.
How would you feel about subscription models moving toward other areas? If you could no longer buy or own music or books, only pay a monthly fee to access media - are you fine with that?
In an extreme model there was a recent story of automakers wanting to prohibit self-repair or modification of vehicles (link) - maybe we shouldn't own vehicles, only lease?
Just curious about people's opinions.
We already have services like the ones mentioned.
Cars have been leased for years.
Beats, Pandora, Spotify are things
There is probably some subscription service for books, too, but I don't know about such things.
None of these services have made it impossible to buy similar products outright if that's what you want to do.
The vendors might have exclusive content, but that doesn't mean you can't buy a car, book or track if you don't want to lease or subscribe to one. You might not get exactly the car, book or track you want unless you are willing to deal with the producer's business model, however.
I feel it is perfectly reasonable for product producers to change the way they do business. Monopoly concerns are something to look out for and Adobe is close to a monopoly in the professional creative design space. But the manifestation of a monopoly is ratcheting up prices unreasonably with no checks to keep pricing in-line. The thing is, Adobe's pricing model is reasonably close to inline with the former perpetual license model:
PS: I do have a copy of CS 5.5 Design Premium I'd be happy to sell to anyone who wants a perpetual CS license. My last customer who needed me to work in software so old it wasn't available through CC (you can download App versions back to CS6 through CC) has finally upgraded and I don't imagine ever needing to work natively in CS 5.5 again.
I understand for pros making a living off the software
Just estimating, but for pros, it is actually cheaper now than it was before. If you purchased the Master Collection it was like +/- $2,400 and then another +/- $1,000 every 18 months which works out to be over $100 per month over the first 3 years and you had to wait 18 months to get updates. Even then, not all the apps were significantly updated. That was annoying. Now it is only $50 a month and you get updates all the time. When Adobe first released the program it was only $29 per month so that lowers the 3 year comparison even more.
When they first announced the CC system, many people predicted that Adobe would slow down the updates once they had a captive customer base. The exact opposite has happened. We have been getting many upgrades and new apps as well. I am very pleased with the program and I plan to keep the subscription until I retire and then if I need to do something personal like an invitation or greeting card or web page, non-professional, I will use Affinity and Pixelmator, Coda and Opacity and a couple other apps I purchased to test out. Right now I need to use the same tools that all my professional peers are using.
If you could no longer buy or own music or books, only pay a monthly fee to access media - are you fine with that?
Just curious about people's opinions.
You mean like subscription streaming music and video services? I'm not sure there's a direct book equivalent (unless you count Audible audiobooks), though I guess libraries have similarities?
Subscription for unlimited access seems pretty popular.