Adobe announces next generation Creative Cloud 2015 with Adobe Stock images platform

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  • Reply 81 of 103
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    Perhaps because I have never used Spaces, I'm not running into some of the problems mentioned. I also generally use my MacBook Pro with only its built in screen and my iMac with a permanently connected 2nd display.

    I have to agree that the green button is rather worthless in Photoshop, though. I guess I just adapted to it and stopped thinking about it a while ago. Still, it would be nice if it did SOMETHING useful.

    Not like I've never found weird things in Adobe software. Just nothing I can think of that I got so angry I'd take to the Internet to discuss it at length.
  • Reply 82 of 103
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    now all becomes clear. You use an Intuous, well of course you like Adobe's full screen mode, it is designed specially for you.

    you don't really need menus for most of what you are doing with the tablet and you have hardware buttons and overlays for anything else you really need access to.

    you probably keep your keyboard to one side and use it as a menuing system via short cuts.

    for the record tabbing through windows isn't all that efficient but sure.

    one thing I have thought of during our chat which I shall try next week is putting each Adobe app in its own Space and sort of simulating the full screen story

    Pretty much right on with the keyboard. At my home office, the keyboard is tucked into a slide-out keyboard tray that is just barely slid out so i can spread the intous out over the desk and just drop my hand down occasionally when I need to jab the B X D S or whatever other button calls up my tools.

    When I work on site, the agency has aesthetic reasons for not allowing keyboard trays be attached to the bottom of the desks.

    So I have to reach around the tablet and it's not really much fun at all. That's the UI fail I could complain about all day long!
  • Reply 83 of 103
    djsherlydjsherly Posts: 1,031member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by polymnia View Post

     



    Look, man. This doesn't sound like a huge success story by any standard I am familiar with. I'm not trying to pile on, but that's how it sounds to me. Despite my assessment, you are welcome to keep on keeping on if that's what you want to do. I eventually decided to relegate guitar playing to a hobby because while I was achieving some small measure of local success, I was clearly not going to turn it into a viable livelihood.

     

    Politics, economics, demographics and all the rest are not at all interesting to me.]

     


    In making your 'assessment' those things that are not interesting to you are entirely relevant. You can't take 'success' in the USA and use that as the benchmark for 'success' elsewhere. Everything else would like quite shitty by comparison.

  • Reply 84 of 103
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by djsherly View Post

     

    In making your 'assessment' those things that are not interesting to you are entirely relevant. You can't take 'success' in the USA and use that as the benchmark for 'success' elsewhere. Everything else would like quite shitty by comparison.




    Got to admit I am pretty ignorant about Portugal in particular. It is not a 3rd world country, right? It's part of Western Europe, after all.

     

    But I guess my point is the same, if he isn't making enough to afford CC, he should stick with whatever Adobe software he has with a perpetual license.

     

    The thing is, if he's making so little money and having year-long breaks in work, I don't know how he'd be able to afford his perpetual license anyway. Let's not forget that back in the perpetual license days there was a large payment made out to Adobe every now and then. Even if you upgrade every other version, or every third version. Everyone upgrades sometimes if they are doing professional work.

     

    Maybe finding new software as he seems to have done is the right way to go for him. If it meets his needs, why not?

     

    I guess I'm taking the long way around to making my point: Adobe is under no obligation to make it's product affordable to everyone in every situation. I feel that software with the comprehensive scope of Adobe's design applications SHOULD be relatively expensive. It doesn't write itself. I'm really happy with the pricing model, I feel I'm getting a lot of innovation for my $50/month.

  • Reply 85 of 103
    mainyehcmainyehc Posts: 133member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by polymnia View Post

     



    Look, man. This doesn't sound like a huge success story by any standard I am familiar with. I'm not trying to pile on, but that's how it sounds to me. Despite my assessment, you are welcome to keep on keeping on if that's what you want to do. I eventually decided to relegate guitar playing to a hobby because while I was achieving some small measure of local success, I was clearly not going to turn it into a viable livelihood.

     

    Once again, if Serif, or whatever application, becomes relevant in my field, I'll buy it in a second. I will make sure I always have the software my clients expect me to use in their workflow.

     

    Politics, economics, demographics and all the rest are not at all interesting to me.]

     

    Best of luck.




    Man, are you serious? Yep, you're not too interested in politics and economics, and it definitely shows…

     

    I am, of course, not working on a local big name agency like Brandia Central (they did many jobs for UEFA; if you are into soccer, you might've heard of them), but I'll tell you something: I am better at drawing lettering/custom typography than those guys, and even if I was working there, I wouldn't earn that much more than on the crappy event company I hitherto worked for. I'm not working at a large international shop either, here or abroad, *yet*; that's what I'm aiming for when I leave this hellhole of a country for good (I pretty much have to; staying here and finding a slightly better paying job alone isn't enough, as the political and socio-economic environment here is, itself, toxic)… And one day I may open my *own* shop, and set my *own* rules, and heck, even subscribe to Adobe CC (and declare it as the tax-deductible monthly expense it probably is, duh). Sure, I've started my career path a bit too late (I recently turned 30), and I do a few more things which are hobbies but could become careers: classical/choir singing being one, and Mac repair being another, but a) there's only two professional choirs in my country (sucks to live here, right?) and b) while I do enjoy repairing Macs, I'm not really considering doing it for a living (not with the added expense of travelling to way-too-expensive Ireland and paying Apple up the nose just to get an AASP certification, and the obscene price hikes Apple recently introduced in Europe on account of the weak EUR/USD exchange rate, which are certain to kill the recent momentum they had on this corner of the continent… oh, wait, you're not into economics, sorry!… not sorry).

     

    Also, those are obviously not the only jobs I had, just those which paid better/with a higher profile (and they are depressingly underpaid, all of them… Do you think that's because of lack of quality on my part? Well, guess what: I could be driving a cab, or be a plumber, or teaching, or doing science or whatever; I'd still be grossly underpaid, as the only jobs that are decently paid here are medical-related or in finance/management, two avenues which are, y'know, a bit hard to crack into this late in the game). Trust me, in a country with a total population of 10 million and undergoing the worst economic slump since the 1960s, and when half of your childhood friends and school colleagues are living somewhere else in Europe because they just couldn't find decent jobs (and not those crappy state-sponsored internships to mask the unemployment statistics and fool the OECD and the seemingly unsuspecting – and mostly dumb – electorate) after years of trying, having clients and jobs *at all* (and without trying that hard) is almost sheer luck (the fact that most have stuck to me speaks volumes, and while I'm at it, I was let go not because I was a bad designer, but because I ”didn't fit in with the company culture and didn't get along with my colleagues” – I know for a fact that I am already the third decent designer in a row which didn't stay around for long, and actually got rave accolades both during my tenure and *on my exit*; such turnover rate, with good people whose technical prowess and people skills I can vouch for, says something both about said “company culture” – meaning: a narcissistic boss with a troupe of pandering, bullying minions that make any hitherto sane person go bonkers – and the job market for designers in my country – meaning: the worst ever). So you can judge all you like, but while I do know the current state of software distribution and licensing fairly well, you know nothing about my national and personal reality, so, as I said, you do not end up looking very good in the picture.

     

    Back to monthly licences: it all comes down to choice… Sure, I could cling to CS5/6 until the heat death of the Universe, but what if I wanted to climb a few steps up the ladder later on to either update my tools or stay compatible, without giving up my own way of managing my tools (both hardware and software-wise) and my finances? Nope, I get a big F-U by Adobe, so they are getting a big fat F-U in return. And since I will end up having to deal with compatibility issues anyway, I may as well keep my tools updated… It's just that my money will be going somewhere else.



    Oh, and by the way, FWIW, I could probably afford paying Adobe's bill; it's just that I don't really want to, as it gets more expensive along the way. I am judicious with my expenses, whether they are purchases, subscriptions, personal investments in education/training, etc., and upon careful consideration (4 minutes reading that fateful CC press release and 1 more minute doing some basic arithmetics) I decided that the value proposition of Adobe CC didn't fit my needs (and what I've been seeing lately hasn't made me budge even a bit). I just gave some insight to the *reasons* that make me be judicious about my expenses, but that shouldn't, in and of itself, make my decisions any less valid just because *your* reality is different than *mine*. Oh, and by the way: I am aware of the nuisance it is to have to ask colleagues/clients/somewhere else along the production chain for cross-compatible file standards if and when I'm sent the eventual .ai, .indd/.inx or .psd file that fails to open properly in CS6/Affinity and the opportunity costs that brings with it; I am also confident, as I said, that a) my work is good enough for that not to be too big an issue, b) in Affinity becoming prevalent enough so as to asking for .afdesign/.afphoto/.afpublisher files not being such an exotic/preposterous/amateur proposition as asking for *ugh* .cdr files and c) that I will be nice and assertive enough about it so that people both understand and accept my reasons for doing business with a different software package (hey, I've been using Macs since 2003, so I'm already used to being the underdog). By the way, I used to be the go-to Machead in my Faculty (I was, in fact, the Mac Room monitor, so it was actually a job in itself) and still am among all of my acquaintances. I *am* very vocal in my displeasure about CC, and it seems to resonate well enough with most of those people, so… take it for what it's worth.

     

    All things considered, I am but a consumer and, as a consumer, I believe I should have some rights; the right to a healthy marketplace, for starters, where monopolies (whether official or de facto) and/or dominant closed standards aren't the norm. The right to choose, which, while not being some sort of god-given right or whatever, inherently adds value to a marketplace (see the new Apple Music vs. the old iTunes Music Store, or Office 360 vs. the regular Office 2015, and how the introduction of the former doesn't necessarily mean the death of the latter, and also how killing off a *software* product and licensing model that *still* had some demand left in it in the name of a totally hypocritical strategy – I said as much before: the fact that a new, “major” version of CC comes out each year just like CS versions did should be a dead giveaway as to how the “continuous upgrade” strategy of Adobe was just a plain falsehood – is just a bad business move which, in the long run, may come back to bite them where we all know; and no, comparing Apple's strategy of killing off product lines to introduce new ones isn't comparable, as tooling and assembly lines of *material* goods can't be compared to… err… plain software licensing and development/distribution models). Would you care to address these issues, which are very much on topic, instead on focusing on my personal history?

     

    That would be swell because, so far, nobody seems to be talking about the elephant in the room, which is CC itself and its oh-so-revolutionary features (not). I mean, TypeKit, stock imagery, etc., are all very fine and dandy (especially TypeKit, I'll give you that, as being a type designer in training myself I can see inherent value in it, even if in a bit self-serving way), but seriously: not everyone uses or needs those in day-to-day operations. I draw my own logos and my own custom lettering/fonts for the most demanding customers, and use lesser, default/free fonts for the rest (just try putting even a meager €10 font license in an otherwise normal service quote and watch them squirm… true story!). I also deal mostly with original photography supplied by my clients or do my own abstract/vector illustrations… So, in my line of business, with those clients, I have absolutely no need for either of those features, so why should I be forced to pay a monthly subscription for features I currently (if ever!) don't need? So, yep, those are my €0,02.

     

    Oh, by the way and speaking of potentially useful (if gimmicky) features, I also found some use in Illustrator's perspective drawing feature (good thing it's in CS6; I'm just using it as a somewhat recent example so please bear with me), but though I did manage to coerce it into doing my bidding, I found it to be rather convoluted and unintuitive. Having studied both descriptive geometry and conical perspective at various levels for years on end (five, to be more precise: three in high school and two in college, the first of which with heavy emphasis on perspective), that wasn't too hard, though I'd rather use a full-blown 3D application instead and likely will in the future (doing live vector edits in perspective planes is nice, but way too cumbersome to be practical in more complex settings). I also find it terrible, UX-wise, that accidentally pressing Shift-P instead of Shift-O (and I do change artboard sizes all the time, so that's a common occurrence) activates that sort of “modal perspective tool”, akin to Affinity's Personas, but without giving you a clear indication of how to get out of it; I then have to dig into the less exercised regions of my muscle memory to press whatever convoluted shortcut they came up with to make the perspective axes go away (was it Cmd+Shift+I? I never seem to recall, as I don't use the feature that often)… Yep, Adobe at its finest, with their perfectly honed UX… not! If all of the new features of CC and its shortcuts and interface are as well thought-out and implemented as that one, I think I'll pass.

  • Reply 86 of 103
    mainyehcmainyehc Posts: 133member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by polymnia View Post

     



    Got to admit I am pretty ignorant about Portugal in particular. It is not a 3rd world country, right? It's part of Western Europe, after all.

     

    But I guess my point is the same, if he isn't making enough to afford CC, he should stick with whatever Adobe software he has with a perpetual license.

     

    The thing is, if he's making so little money and having year-long breaks in work, I don't know how he'd be able to afford his perpetual license anyway. Let's not forget that back in the perpetual license days there was a large payment made out to Adobe every now and then. Even if you upgrade every other version, or every third version. Everyone upgrades sometimes if they are doing professional work.

     

    Maybe finding new software as he seems to have done is the right way to go for him. If it meets his needs, why not?

     

    I guess I'm taking the long way around to making my point: Adobe is under no obligation to make it's product affordable to everyone in every situation. I feel that software with the comprehensive scope of Adobe's design applications SHOULD be relatively expensive. It doesn't write itself. I'm really happy with the pricing model, I feel I'm getting a lot of innovation for my $50/month.


     

    Well… I will not get too much into detail, but I can surmise (more like over-simplify) it thusly: Portugal was the target of a joint IMF-ECB-EC intervention (as for the IMF, for the second time in a few decades already), as most banks were bankrupt and had to, err, be “bailed out” by them (think Goldman Sachs, only on a smaller scale)… That meaning, with all the strings attached to such a deal, they were bailed out by us, the mostly law-abiding, mostly tax-paying citizens. Rampant austerity, considered a “cure-for-all-ills”, became more of a poison than a medicine, which outright killed the economy from the bottom up (except the top 1%, as is common in these scenarios, only got richer… go figure!). Obsecenely high taxes [we pay already a staggering 23% of VAT without the corresponding public services to justify it, seeing how most of the formerly public companies are already private] => not enough money for consumers to spend => absolutely no demand for services => not enough income for service providers = mass bankruptcies + mass unemployment + mass emigration + evictions [full families at a time, sometimes] and increasingly visible homelessness + soup kitchens popping up left and right like mushrooms + high suicide rates +… you get the drift. Like 1930s USofA, except less gruesome and less talked about, you know, because. Let me put it in an easier-to-digest form: like Greece, except less bankrupt and less corrupt, even though all politicians (local and european) try to convince everyone that we are the “good example” to make the greeks look bad by comparison. Nope, we're all the same, except our politicians (and people) are meek, while the greeks are apparently a bit crazy but mostly ballsy and more level-headed than their tone may make them seem. That pretty much sums it up.

     

    All the while, Condé Nast Traveller has been laser-focusing on Lisbon and Porto, making them become the destinations du jour: “Come see the beautifully degraded sidewalks [its paving material/technique is called “calçada portuguesa” and removing it in most places except the most touristic ones is being considered because “the population is getting too old and trips on it too much”, but I blame that consequence on its bad implementations and lack of maintenance and said costs as the true reason, in a sick and perverted cause/consequence reversal manipulation to fool the citizens and progressively dehumanize them by stripping the city off of its character, a move not at all unlike, say, removing all of Hector Guimard's entrances of Paris Métro stations – something which fortunately didn't happen, at least to more than half of them – or all of [formerly] East Berlin's Ampelmännchen – something which nearly happened but was ultimately stopped on its tracks due to grassroots support, so much so that those actually invaded the western districts instead] full of homeless people, the monuments covered in advertisement tarps, courtesy of the sponsors who lovingly paid for their much-needed face-cleaning, the overcrowded trams and the noisy, polluting and unregulated tuk-tuks”. This isn't a third-world country, by all means (we still have a superb healthcare system – for the time being) but, in many ways, it certainly behaves and works as one (with rampant corruption, dubious privatizations and public-private partnerships and whatnot), while everyone keeps praising it as an oasis it most definitely is not. Yes, the climate is lovely; yes, the people are nice and go the extra mile to welcome you. Oh, and we have insanely great cell-phone coverage and really fast internet connections, both wired and cellular (and we'll be getting Netflix soon, finally), whoop-de-doo!

     

    But apart from that, its FUBAR-land over here, with predictably ever-plummeting living standards until we finally reach rock bottom and start a revolution. Or something. I don't really care either way anymore as, by then, I should probably be a bit far away. If things do get better, I may try to come back and fix whatever I can, because I do still have many of my friends and most of my family here. Otherwise I will do what most people in that situation do, which is staying put and sending money to help their loved ones get by and to pay whatever actual debt (not the fabricated one which our corrupt politicians ascribe to our “overspending” and “living above our means” – a load of BS for many of us; most of it was spent on redundant, underused and unnecessary infrastructure like highways, stadia for the 2004 European Soccer Championship, etc.) they may have, thus bringing some sense of balance and justice to the world at the expense of being able to enjoy the company of their families and the nice climate of their homeland. Hey, some of this may be hyperbole, and some of it is exactly accurate, but the gist of it is: I spent the first 24 years of my life believing that I lived in a great country (much like people abroad, by inertia, still believe) and had a great future ahead (hence the fact that I wasn't in a big rush to build such a great career, portfolio, etc.), and the last six learning just how cruel the jokes whole nations pull on each other (and bad deals they get each other into) can be. So that's probably enough about Portugal for now. /rant

     

    Anyway, that was my point. Affinity is absolutely right for me, and Adobe is under no obligation to serve my needs. But just because they don't have to, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't at least try it; and to snub a sizable portion of their total addressable market with such bravado is, for all intents and purposes, a glaringly stupid (if not outright insulting) business move that only a monopolist-at-heart blinded by greed would make… As such, I believe they will probably pay dearly for that and very much welcome a scenario, much like the current iOS vs. Android vs. OS X vs. Windows (yes… I am lumping them *all* together as they are *all* operating systems regardless of the form factors they run on, and they all conver a considerable portion of the market to keep it diverse, interesting and healthy) where there are not just two but many players in the DTP/creative software space. I, for one, and not in the least bit begrudgingly (as has often been historically the case in my country), welcome my new english overlords, but will be sure to keep my eyes peeled for further developments. And that, weird as it may sound, also includes Adobe… It ain't over until the fat lady sings, amirite? ;)

     

    Oh, and as for innovation… Well, we'll have to agree on disagreeing. And, though I will have to admit that I haven't tested the most recent versions of CC as thoroughly as I should, Adobe did something terrible that pretty much offsets any gains their supposed “innovation” could bring to the table; they messed with their users plans, with their business model and, above all, with their trust (which, truth be told, wasn't that big to begin with, what with all the bugs, glitches, bloat, feature creep, anticompetitive practices, stubbornness of refusing to let go of Flash on the web for good and whatnot). I mean, Adobe had, for many years, been the company that most loved, and which many of those loved to hate. That CC-only announcement was, for many people (including yours truly; that much should be obvious), the final straw of a long string of qualms with the company. Much like Microsoft, Adobe will have to come a looooong way before those users and I are willing to give it a truly open-minded second chance, and that may or may not include offering perpetual licences, price cuts, sensible exit strategies that allow you to keep a frozen version to open your work if and when you stop paying, etc. Just another €0,02 to add to the debate…

  • Reply 87 of 103
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    fastasleep wrote: »
    I used to take breaks whenever I'd get frustrated and visit http://adobegripes.tumblr.com just to remind myself that I wasn't alone. Sadly, that Tumblr isn't updated as often as it used to be, but has many great examples of WTF moments in Adobe UI history.


    LOL

    Awesome site, thanks.

    1000

    1000
  • Reply 88 of 103
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    mainyehc wrote: »
    Well… I will not get too much into detail, but I can surmise (more like over-simplify) it thusly: Portugal was the target of a joint IMF-ECB-EC intervention (as for the IMF, for the second time in a few decades already), as most banks were bankrupt and had to, err, be “bailed out” by them (think Goldman Sachs, only on a smaller scale)… That meaning, with all the strings attached to such a deal, they were bailed out by us, the mostly law-abiding, mostly tax-paying citizens. Rampant austerity, considered a “cure-for-all-ills”, became more of a poison than a medicine, which outright killed the economy from the bottom up (except the top 1%, as is common in these scenarios, only got richer… go figure!). Obsecenely high taxes [we pay already a staggering 23% of VAT without the corresponding public services to justify it, seeing how most of the formerly public companies are already private] => not enough money for consumers to spend => absolutely no demand for services => not enough income for service providers = mass bankruptcies + mass unemployment + mass emigration + evictions [full families at a time, sometimes] and increasingly visible homelessness + soup kitchens popping up left and right like mushrooms + high suicide rates +… you get the drift. Like 1930s USofA, except less gruesome and less talked about, you know, because. Let me put it in an easier-to-digest form: like Greece, except less bankrupt and less corrupt, even though all politicians (local and european) try to convince everyone that we are the “good example” to make the greeks look bad by comparison. Nope, we're all the same, except our politicians (and people) are meek, while the greeks are apparently a bit crazy but mostly ballsy and more level-headed than their tone may make them seem. That pretty much sums it up.

    All the while, Condé Nast Traveller has been laser-focusing on Lisbon and Porto, making them become the destinations du jour: “Come see the beautifully degraded sidewalks [its paving material/technique is called “calçada portuguesa” and removing it in most places except the most touristic ones is being considered because “the population is getting too old and trips on it too much”, but I blame that consequence on its bad implementations and lack of maintenance and said costs as the true reason, in a sick and perverted cause/consequence reversal manipulation to fool the citizens and progressively dehumanize them by stripping the city off of its character, a move not at all unlike, say, removing all of Hector Guimard's entrances of Paris Métro stations – something which fortunately didn't happen, at least to more than half of them – or all of [formerly] East Berlin's Ampelmännchen – something which nearly happened but was ultimately stopped on its tracks due to grassroots support, so much so that those actually invaded <span style="line-height:1.4em;">the western districts instead] full of homeless people, the monuments covered in advertisement tarps, courtesy of the sponsors who lovingly paid for their much-needed face-cleaning, the overcrowded trams and the noisy, polluting and unregulated tuk-tuks”. This isn't a third-world country, by all means (we still have a superb healthcare system – for the time being) but, in many ways, it certainly behaves and works as one (with rampant corruption, dubious privatizations and public-private partnerships and whatnot), while everyone keeps praising it as an oasis it most definitely is not. Yes, the climate is lovely; yes, the people are nice and go the extra mile to welcome you.</span>
    <span style="line-height:1.4em;">Oh, and we have insanely great cell-phone coverage and really fast internet connections, both wired and cellular (and we'll be getting Netflix soon,</span>
    <em style="line-height:1.4em;">finally</em>
    <span style="line-height:1.4em;">), whoop-de-doo!</span>


    But apart from that, its FUBAR-land over here, with predictably ever-plummeting living standards until we finally reach rock bottom and start a revolution. Or something. I don't really care either way anymore as, by then, I should probably be a bit far away. If things do get better, I may try to come back and fix whatever I can, because I do still have many of my friends and most of my family here. Otherwise I will do what most people in that situation do, which is staying put and sending money to help their loved ones get by and to pay whatever actual debt (not the fabricated one which our corrupt politicians ascribe to our “overspending” and “living above our means” – a load of BS for many of us; most of it was spent on redundant, underused and unnecessary infrastructure like highways, stadia for the 2004 European Soccer Championship, etc.) they may have, thus bringing some sense of balance and justice to the world at the expense of being able to enjoy the company of their families and the nice climate of their homeland. Hey, some of this may be hyperbole, and some of it is exactly accurate, but the gist of it is: I spent the first 24 years of my life believing that I lived in a great country (much like people abroad, by inertia, still believe) and had a great future ahead (hence the fact that I wasn't in a big rush to build such a great career, portfolio, etc.), and the last six learning just how cruel the jokes whole nations pull on each other (and bad deals they get each other into) can be. So that's probably enough about Portugal for now. /rant

    Anyway, that was my point. Affinity is absolutely right for me, and Adobe is under no obligation to serve my needs. But just because they don't have to, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't at least try it; and to snub a sizable portion of their total addressable market with such bravado is, for all intents and purposes, a glaringly stupid (if not outright insulting) business move that only a monopolist-at-heart blinded by greed would make… As such, I believe they will probably pay dearly for that and very much welcome a scenario, much like the current iOS vs. Android vs. OS X vs. Windows (yes… I am lumping them *all* together as they are *all* operating systems regardless of the form factors they run on, and they all conver a considerable portion of the market to keep it diverse, interesting and healthy) where there are not just two but many players in the DTP/creative software space. I, for one, and not in the least bit begrudgingly (as has often been historically the case in my country), welcome my new english overlords, but will be sure to keep my eyes peeled for further developments. And that, weird as it may sound, also includes Adobe… It ain't over until the fat lady sings, amirite? ;)

    Oh, and as for innovation… Well, we'll have to agree on disagreeing. And, though I will have to admit that I haven't tested the most recent versions of CC as thoroughly as I should, Adobe did something terrible that pretty much offsets any gains their supposed “innovation” could bring to the table; they messed with their users plans, with their business model and, above all, with their trust (which, truth be told, wasn't that big to begin with, what with all the bugs, glitches, bloat, feature creep, anticompetitive practices, stubbornness of refusing to let go of Flash on the web for good and whatnot). I mean, Adobe had, for many years, been the company that most loved, and which many of those loved to hate. That CC-only announcement was, for many people (including yours truly; that much should be obvious), the final straw of a long string of qualms with the company. Much like Microsoft, Adobe will have to come a looooong way before those users and I are willing to give it a truly open-minded second chance, and that may or may not include offering perpetual licences, price cuts, sensible exit strategies that allow you to keep a frozen version to open your work if and when you stop paying, etc. Just another €0,02 to add to the debate…

    I'm guessing you are a lot of fun to talk to at parties.
  • Reply 89 of 103
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PhilBoogie View Post





    LOL



    Awesome site, thanks.










    My favorite from a Photoshop update a year or so ago. I did actually tweet this one to some friends since I found it pretty funny in light of the 20 years I've spent using Photoshop:

     

  • Reply 90 of 103
    danielswdanielsw Posts: 906member
    mainyehc wrote: »
    The thing is: I *am* sort of successful-ish by portuguese standards. I wouldn't go so far as saying that I own my own place, but I am almost halfway through my mortgage and had the luck (yes, you read it: luck) of having worked as a public servant with a more-than-decent healthcare plan for two years straight. I also had the luck (yes, luck) of earning upwards of €700/mo (also with social and healthcare benefits) for a year working in a medical event company (though it is a small-to-medium-sized company, they organize multiple national and sometimes even international events a year, with upwards of 1.000 people each, just so you can get an idea of the scale of their operation). I earned LESS than €10/h, and I considered myself lucky: that's the definition of a effed-up country with an economy of 1%ers treating everybody else like modern-day slaves. I was actually *happy* for having been laid off and finally having the time to do my own freelance and personal stuff and properly finish my master's degree with decent grades (though that happiness probably also comes from not having to deal anymore with the totally botched work and social dynamic <span style="line-height:1.4em;">there, but I digress).</span>



    You see, I am also lucky enough to be, once again after a one-year hiatus, responsible for the communication of a local cultural event (but pretty big, nonetheless, with all the big national orchestras and whatnot… I could say an issue of 30.000 japanese sketchbook-style leaflets and almost as much A5 booklets probably also counts as “big” by anyone's standards) on the third biggest city, Coimbra (a very upscale place, not unlike Cambridge, Oxford or Bologna), and I am only earning €1.500 for the equivalent of 1 and 1/2 months of work (pretty sad, too, if you ask me, but this year, since I was given the commission halfway through the project, I wasn't the one responsible for the visual identity – supposedly, as I had to tweak it more than slightly – , so I had to scrap that from the service quote and am not pushing them too much anyway as I would very much like to run the whole show and hit the €2.000+ mark once again next year). And I am not undercharging, by any means… Not in a country where young, naïve designers enter consecutive, endless and abusive unpaid internships to “gain experience”!

    So, I am not changing careers; I am probably changing countries instead, and very, very soon at that (and join the ranks of the already tens of thousands of young portuguese people scattered around Europe and abroad)… Modesty be damned, I am a fine designer, thank you very much. And, while I'm at it, though having to see “designs” made by “somebody's niece” pains me to no end, I am confident enough in my own skills not to see those as too threatening and I know how to “sell my fish” – as we say here – around just fine, mmkay? So, if you wish to discuss politics, economics, demographics, etc., we may do so, but you will *not* enjoy it nor come out on top looking good. I would personally refrain from having that kind of talk here and now so, please, I urge you not to force me any further into the subject, for our collective sake.

    Back to the subject matter proper; I am fine with everyone here who likes the CC subscription plans, really! If it works for you, great. More power to you… What I can't fathom is why the hell did Adobe had to scrap perpetual licences altogether? It just reeks of greed and lazyness, which, when combined their recent acquisition policies screams anticompetitiveness. Also, constantly dealing with people who can't look past their bubble and keep blindly praising Adobe for their great business decisions, without any regard for huge swaths of the creative market (that includes The Rest of the World™) is Just. Plain. Hard. And I am both referring to Adobe and their evangelists, and (sorry, not sorry) take a bit of offence from both. I might be externalizing, but I am doing so on behalf of thousands of people who pretty much *HAVE* to resort to piracy to even finish their design studies on a competitive standing with their fellow foreign colleagues (you wouldn't want to emigrate to the UK right after finishing your course – an increasingly common occurrence – and draw a blank stare from a potential employer when answering “Corel” or “Inkscape” as your software of choice, now, would you?).

    Anyway, and since I'm not here to attack other people, or defend myself and my fellow countrymen or whatever, I would like to elaborate my point further… Take Lightroom, for instance: I strongly believe that Adobe hasn't yet scrapped the perpetual licence because the professional and prosumer photography market is way too big, valuable and competitive for Adobe to risk alienating a sizeable chunk of their userbase. Sure, with Aperture out of the picture (ha!) they might have more incentive to do so, but it's probably quicker to come up with a decent photo library manager (it's only a database on steroids, coupled with a fast picture renderer and plugin support and RAW profiles, am I right?) than a full-blown DTP package, let alone a Master-Collection-sized portfolio… Serif, as I could glean from their user/developer forums, has already tasted the blood and is half-admittedly working on a new Lightroom contender, so there's that. Whereas in the case of DTP, Quark was relegated to a distant second place (and is also waaay too expensive to be a viable alternative as far as cost is concerned anyway) and Scribus is, well, Scribus; Corel [especially Draw, but not limited to, though I've heard good things about Painter] is scorned by most professional designers, Inkscape is, well, Inkscape, and most other contenders are puny by comparison and better suited for general UI work; and Photoshop is the 800 lb, invencible behemoth… which even being the giant that it undoubtedly is, could be easily decapitated with, you're guessing, feature-[near]parity, raw performance, some novel features sprinkled here and there and proper plugin support.

    Guess who's coming up with a comprehensive solution? Yep: Serif. While I am aware that a) Affinity is not yet cross-platform and b) it's limited to the DTP market, well… a) a Windows version *is* coming (though probably only after the whole suite is completed, maybe after v.2 comes out and even *after* another also half-admitted iOS version for iPad – great on an iPad Pro, I'm guessing) and b) DTP is a big enough niche for it to succeed and force Adobe's hand. Hence my comparison with Tesla, which seems to have been lost on all of you… Oh well. Oh, and don't forget about that big, gaping void Aperture left behind, so… who knows whether they come up with motion graphics editors, Macaw-esque WYSIWYG coding tools, etc., right? If they do hit their promised deadlines, they would have come up with a viable contender to the old Design Standard suite in under 5 years, which tells much about their coding skills and bodes really well for their future.

    Anyway, to get back to Adobe and close off my argument, Adobe should've followed Apple's example and done some necessary code-cleaning, while treating their customers at least half-decently and giving them shiny new toys to play with without really imposing any taxes on them (while Apple likes to discontinue support for older machines, having CC updating itself or forcing you to do it regardless may either prevent you from using older but still functional machines – or peripherals! – to do your work, or become a waste of money if you are, in fact, allowed to run older versions of it while still paying for updates you can't benefit from); instead, they first rested on their laurels, bloating their software to no end and acquiring giant competitors and startups alike, left and right, and decided price-gouging their loyal supporters and treating them as pirates and thieves (*cough* by using activation schemes that make their software harder to use legally than otherwise *cough*) was the way of the future. That, my friends, is Shantanu Narayen's doing. He may not have come from a strictly financial/business/marketing background, but he surely let the bean counters run afoul and run the company…

    Wow, this is all so sad. I was in your beautiful country before 25 do Abril. Doesn't sound like things have gotten much better since. I looked up "fado" on Google Translate: "doom". Hmmmm.
  • Reply 91 of 103
    Thats so snobbish. You are a snob. Not in a cool way, like a kid who never got taught right from wrong who is now working at adobe is it? And you want to be comanny psychologist but you shose the wrong career as an artist did you?
  • Reply 92 of 103
    thepixeldocthepixeldoc Posts: 2,257member
    mainyehc wrote: »
    Well… I will not get too much into detail,...

    ^^^ ... but ya did anyway... and enough posts above this one have quoted you in full... so.... snipped ya ^^^

    Just wanna say I read your lot in life with mixed thoughts... and this came in my newsfeed today.

    I'm taking the time to share it with you because:

    a) you can't say that nobody is listening (reading) or caring... for whatever that's worth to ya;
    b) the opportunity to tell you that you do NOT know everything and that if you listen more and stop complaining, you might have more success;
    c) hoping to at least bring a smile to your face... because you seem so down on everything. Smiles open doors... where as a frown will often get them slammed in your face. So think of this and here's hoping a door opens for you today.

    Anyway... it looks tougher than I thought for ya... because those Portuguese Graffiti Grandmas are pretty darn good.

    Cheers... from an Ol' Dude that likes your "zeal", but could do with a bit less "zest"... :smokey:

    From the CreatorsProject website:
    [Exclusive] Meet Portugal's Gang of Graffitiing Grandparents

    1000
  • Reply 93 of 103
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by ThePixelDoc View Post





    ^^^ ... but ya did anyway... and enough posts above this one have quoted you in full... so.... snipped ya ^^^



    Just wanna say I read your lot in life with mixed thoughts... and this came in my newsfeed today.



    I'm taking the time to share it with you because:



    a) you can't say that nobody is listening (reading) or caring... for whatever that's worth to ya;

    b) the opportunity to tell you that you do NOT know everything and that if you listen more and stop complaining, you might have more success;

    c) hoping to at least bring a smile to your face... because you seem so down on everything. Smiles open doors... where as a frown will often get them slammed in your face. So think of this and here's hoping a door opens for you today.



    Anyway... it looks tougher than I thought for ya... because those Portuguese Graffiti Grandmas are pretty darn good.



    Cheers... from an Ol' Dude that likes your "zeal", but could do with a bit less "zest"... image



    From the CreatorsProject website:

    [Exclusive] Meet Portugal's Gang of Graffitiing Grandparents






    Far more diplomatic than my posts ;)

     

    Concur with your points.

  • Reply 94 of 103
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PhilBoogie View Post





    LOL



    Awesome site, thanks.

     

     

    It's a gold mine. I have a few submissions of my own in there. :)

     

    I'd go hang out on there for a while after Flash CS 5.5 would crash for the half dozenth time in day from the same bug and erase my progress. 

     

    I should've taken screen grabs of all the Creative Cloud installer errors I got while updating to 2015, each one asking me to go quit certain open applications... which were actually effing background processes (at least one of which was one of Adobe's with no actual 2014 apps running at the time) that most users wouldn't have any clue how to deal with.

     

    At least you don't have to manually go uninstall each app you're replacing this time! The jury is still out as to other bugs in the 2015 apps, haven't had much time to explore them yet. :)

  • Reply 95 of 103
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post





    Phil what's your opinion of the Serif Affinity products so far?



    I have to think if they must be giving Adobe pause for thought.



    http://www.serif.com

    I am not Phil, but I have been testing the Serif Affinity products recently. I am also a freelance designer with small businesses as my client base. I am also a long time user of Adobe products, way back to when Aldus still owned Pagemaker.

     

    I do not have the budget to spend on the Cloud subscription, I need more than one Adobe product, I use Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and DreamWeaver, the price for the suite which includes so many programs I don't need is far beyond what I can spend. I still have CS6, but it is very long in the tooth.

     

    I will not spend money that needs to go to my mortgage to make Adobe even more bloated, and I HATE Illustrator with a passion of a thousand suns. HATE IT. I will not go to Lightroom now that Apple has EOL Aperture either. So I have been on a search for replacements. I have tried every alternative out there pretty much. I had heard very good reviews for Serif's products for Windows, so I downloaded the trials to run on my Windows 7 via Parallels. They work nicely, the only thing is that I hate Windows and I didn't want to invest money in software for a platform I don't use much, only to test websites. I then found out that they made a Mac Version of the Illustrator type program for Mac, it is Affinity Designer. I have been working with it and I love it so far, it isn't a perfect replacement, but it is on sale now for $40 and for that price is is amazing. Nice and smooth, fits my workflow just right. I am also Beta testing their Affinity Photos which is a Photoshop replacement, very impressive, I love working with their interface, so much more intelligence and intuitive than Adobe. The one I am really waiting for is their next one for Desktop Publishing, since that is the bulk of my work other than websites that are mostly done in Wordpress.

     

    I am really beyond surprised by Serif's work, it is just fantastic. Files are compliant with Illustrator or Photoshop, they have CMYK workflows and the reviewers of the PC version have said that the print shops and other industry printing houses have no trouble with the pdf/eps files.  Affinity Designer opens AI files just fine (some features are missing, but none of them are ones I really need to use) So, I am purchasing all the programs as they are released. And should I HAVE to have some feature for an CC Adobe project for a client, I will have them pay the fees for the time I need to use the Creative Cloud software. I am so happy to have an alternative for my use and one that is such a pleasant experience to work with.

     

    Instead of Aperture, I have found that Emulsion, created by The Escapers (the folks behind Flux) is wonderful, has everything I needed from Aperture (save the touch up brushes, but I can send my image to Pixelmator for touch up from inside Emulsion) It even will used Aperture plugins. For $50 a great deal. 

     

    The programs I am using now are Pixelmator, Affinity Designer, Affinity Photos, iDraw & Emulsion. For web coding outside of WordPress I use Espresso, Flux and Pinegrow Web Editior. I use Pages for books and ebooks.  I do need InDesign still, but it is getting less and less. Some smart objects need Photoshop, so occasionally I use that too.

     

    I have Adobe CS6 for fall back and should I get files that can only open in Adobe products (like InDesign) but I would rather use the alternatives any day. I understand that large companies need the consistency of Adobe cloud, but there are many, many, many smaller businesses and individuals who can't justify the cost of the monthly ransom.

  • Reply 96 of 103
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    fastasleep wrote: »
    ... would crash for the half dozenth time in day from the same bug and erase my progress.

    The crashing ought to be fixed, but what is EVEN WORSE is loosing your work. That's just plain ridiculous.
    I should've taken screen grabs of all the Creative Cloud installer errors I got while updating to 2015, each one asking me to go quit certain open applications...

    Also ridiculous. What happens when you upgrade the 'proper way', disable any programs that startup at login, reboot, upgrade. Would that make any difference, or are you already doing that?
    ggbrigette wrote: »
    I am not Phil,

    It's an open forum; please, chime in and share your thoughts. Which you do - thanks.
    I will not go to Lightroom now that Apple has EOL Aperture either. So I have been on a search for replacements.

    Same here. Though I still use Aperture (since it's not broken and Photos from Apple was a let down for me, too many bugs and design flaws) but hear great things from Capture One. Aperture hasn't stopped working so I'll probably keep on using that until...maybe Photos since the integration really is great. And for a mere €4 a month I can have all my photos synced across all devices (no need for 128GB iPhone after that). Anything a photo program can't do I can simply import/export in Aperture (or a different program)
    I am also Beta testing their Affinity Photos which is a Photoshop replacement, very impressive, I love working with their interface...

    I'll be testing that out as well; it looks very promising.
    Instead of Aperture, I have found that Emulsion, created by The Escapers (the folks behind Flux) is wonderful, has everything I needed from Aperture (save the touch up brushes, but I can send my image to Pixelmator for touch up from inside Emulsion) It even will used Aperture plugins. For $50 a great deal. 

    That's a great tip, BIG thanks.
    I use Pages for books and ebooks.

    So it is on par for what it needs to do? I don't use it (nor other office programs for that matter) but always read stories about missing features, "dumbed down software", yada yada.
  • Reply 97 of 103
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by PhilBoogie View Post



    [re:Pages]

    So it is on par for what it needs to do? I don't use it (nor other office programs for that matter) but always read stories about missing features, "dumbed down software", yada yada.

    I have been using Pages to create books for authors who are submitting their books to CreateSpace (amazon) for publishing as well as for ebooks. I use it for creating flyers and newsletters for the businesses I work for. What I like most about it is that the authors can make edits using the online interface and they can be Windows users and it doesn't matter. Tracking changes for book publishing is a nightmare beyond nightmare, and I refuse to do edits, I do layout only so I can't be blamed for typos and other mistakes. The authors do their own edits, I do the formatting and make sure it passes amazon's tech specs. Pages is also good for opening most MS Word files, I also have OpenOffice that will open whatever Pages doesn't do well with.

     

    As with many Apple programs lately, a lot of the features are still there but implemented differently or some what hidden so you need to know where they are. I bought a training course for Pages from the App store (TheMacU) that is very helpful.  Pages is good for what it does and I like working with it. It is not a replacement for InDesign, I don't create ads in tPages, it is difficult to set up custom page sizes and I use many layers for ads they can get quite complicated. Pages is best for work that uses text flow with simple layering. I instead started laying out ads in Affinity Designer, that works very well, and is what tipping the balance for me to purchase that program. I am very happy with it and I am liking their Photo app too, I will be buying the suite as they release it.

  • Reply 98 of 103
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by PhilBoogie View Post



    [re:Emulsion]

    That's a great tip, BIG thanks.

     

    I found out about it because I am on their mailing list for Flux. There is a trial download, which I got immediately. I liked it right away, I like the organizational aspects, they are similar to Aperture, the adjustment section is good as well. They have geo-location, face recognition and photos can be sent to an app of your choice for more work and the changes get saved in Emulsion. I feel like this app is what Aperture would be if Apple had updated it. I know that Aperture still works, but I do photo shoots for clients and I don't want to invest more time in an app that in the future many not work, I have hundreds of images to manage, time is better spent transferring from the Aperture library into the Emulsion work flow. Which is another thing I like better, files can be imported to the library or you can link the folders that the images are in rather than importing. They did a brilliant job on the app and it gets better every update. There are some bugs, I found a big one and I was emailing the programmer about it, he was emailing back and we were able to find the source of the issue and he fixed it right away. 

     

    Here is the link to their site - http://emulsionapp.com

  • Reply 99 of 103
    nolamacguynolamacguy Posts: 4,758member
    mstone wrote: »
    So did your corporation decide to purchase extended support in case of security vulnerabilities? Office 2007 mainstream support ended in 2012. To me your company's continued use of 2007 seems more like an IT upgrade nightmare and they postponed doing it rather than a "it just works, why fix it" scenario. I know that is often the case at our IT department. Fortunately I have my own IT guys because our department is mostly Mac. Those Windows IT guys won't touch a Mac.

    support isn't my job, so no idea. but they're a massive company, HP manages their support, so I'm sure the know what they're doing. but even until 2012 it still did the job perfectly and they had no reason to buy annual updates...just because.
  • Reply 100 of 103
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    ggbrigette wrote: »
    ^ post on Apples' Pages

    Thanks for your review. I wonder if the moaning on Pages from people is because they didn't fully look into the program like you have, since you mention most features are still there but a little hidden.


    ggbrigette wrote: »
    ^ post on Emulsion

    It looks a bit 'lightweight to me' but perhaps their website doesn't do the program justice. Maybe I'll download the trial, though first I want to check out Affinity photo beta
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