No, Adobe did not cancel its popular $10 Creative Cloud Photography plan

AppleInsider · May 3, 2019 12:17AM

A number of visitors to Adobe's website recently noticed the popular $9.99 a month Creative Cloud Photography plan replaced by a $19.99 option, but the company says the change only impacts some customers and is not permanent. At least not yet.

For some users, Adobe's Photography webpage does not display a $9.99 plan option.

The removal of Adobe's cheapest CC Photography plan, which includes Lightroom CC, Lightroom CC Classic, Photoshop CC and 20GB of cloud storage, was spotted by PetaPixel on Thursday.

Without an announcement from Adobe, it was speculated that the popular photography toolkit subscription option was no longer available for purchase, leaving customers with a $19.99 per month replacement that covers the same applications and 1TB of cloud storage. Some users are being presented with both the $19.99 a month Photography plan and a $9.99 per month Lightroom-only plan, the latter of which comes with the app, a dedicated website to display user work, social media tools and 1TB of storage.

Confusingly, the changes do not apply to all Adobe.com shoppers, as some are presented the new $19.99 Photography plan, while others still have access to the legacy $9.99 choice.

Clarifying the situation, Adobe in a statement to AppleInsider said it is evaluating a modification of product pricing.

"From time to time, we run tests on Adobe.com which cover a range of items, including plan options that may or may not be presented to all visitors to Adobe.com," an Adobe spokesperson said. "We are currently running a number of tests on Adobe.com. The plan can be purchased at http://www.adobe.com/go/photo18sptst, via phone at 1-800-585-0774 or via major retailers."

Adobe first launched the $9.99 a month Photography plan in 2013 as a limited time promotional deal, but has kept the tier active. Reflected pricing affords photographers access to the latest Lightroom and Photoshop technologies for approximately $120 a year, a substantial savings over Adobe's $20.99 per month single-app rate.

Adobe did not specify when the current testing period s scheduled to expire, or whether the $9.99 plan will be reinstated at that time. Users concerned about a potential rate hike can guarantee cheaper pricing for at least another year by prepaying through Adobe's special site. Alternatively, customers can lock in three years of access by purchasing multiple 12-month product keys from an authorized reseller like Adorama.

AI_lias · May 3, 2019 12:33AM

Adobe's just slowly boiling the frog.

GonzagueGB · May 3, 2019 12:40AM

In a way, the did. When this $10 USD plan was launched I had both Lr and Ps, now for 10 USD you only have Lr

StrangeDays · May 3, 2019 12:55AM

If they’re not offering the $10 tier to all customers, as part of a test, then yes, it is fair to say they got rid of it. Now they’re dealing with the blowback.

For consumers, stand-alone software as a service is a scam. I can’t imagine paying $240 every single year for photoshop. Yeah I get it comes with data and other apps, but if you just want photoshop, it’s $240 a year?

Metriacanthosaurus · May 3, 2019 1:02AM

In other words, they’re testing to see if they can get away with doubling the price of their most popular subscription.

lordjohnwhorfin · May 3, 2019 1:04AM

Time to shop for alternatives.

chasm · May 3, 2019 1:10AM

Great news ... for Affinity Photo, Skylum, and the Pixelmator folks.

lkrupp · May 3, 2019 1:12AM

Metriacanthosaurus said:

In other words, they’re testing to see if they can get away with doubling the price of their most popular subscription.

And so what if they are? People will pay it or not. They are not trying to get away with anything. It’s their product, they can charge whatever they want for it. If users see the value they will pay. If they don’t they’ll take a pass.

agilealtitude · May 3, 2019 2:07AM

Hello Affinity Designer and Photo.

macseeker · May 3, 2019 2:21AM

Adobe has a bad condition called "foot in the mouth" disease. Seems like they want their customers to run away.

sflocal · May 3, 2019 3:12AM

Adobe got caught. That's about as simple as one can be and now they're doing damage control.

It's Adobe's product, and they can price it however they want. I find the timing interesting as it was only a couple days ago that folks were talking about Apple's Aperture program being deactivated on the next MacOS update. I guess Adobe knows it will get a new batch of users that waiting until the end with Aperture, or maybe they are just being stupid.

I'm fine paying $10/mo for LR/PS. I remember paying full retail price for Photoshop many years ago so I can't necessarily complain. However, Adobe promised to keep Lightroom updated and fix the HUGE performance problems that plagues Lightroom. I've been on their subscription plan for about four years now and Lightroom today is still just as bad as it was four years ago. Adobe never kept their promise. They put more emphasis on their mobile platform, and their cloud-only versions and leave us Lightroom Classic users in the dust. Shame on Adobe for putting out such sloppy software.

Adobe will be doing something soon. Rest assured, many people - myself included - will look for alternatives (like CaptureOne) and jettison Adobe altogether if they decide to do the $20 route.

I will miss photoshop, but I do enjoy what Pixelmator does, and at least both those apps are native Mac binaries.

We're watching you through a microscope Adobe.

toysandme · May 3, 2019 4:59AM

I’ve been very happy with Affinity products. So long Adobe.

rotateleftbyte · May 3, 2019 5:36AM

The Adobe footgun seems to have been taken out of cold storage once again.

If Adobe double the costs to existing subscribers then I'll drop from Photoshop + Lightroom to just Lightroom. I don't want any of the bells and whistles such as cloud storage or a website. I have my own already sorted thanks.

If Adobe carries on then I'll drop LR and move to an alternative. They are catching up in functionality and ease of use very quickly.

What Adobe could do would be to kill flash once and for all. Tell the world that after say 1st June 2020 it is dead and won't be updated would be a great service to pretty well everyone.

lorin schultz · May 3, 2019 7:51AM

Are there any professional photo editors here? Graphic artists? Not necessarily photographers, but people who manipulate images for a living. Things like removing backgrounds, creating composites, retouching models, adding people and things to scenes -- in other words, lots of masking, cutting, pasting, reshaping, resizing, etc.

If you're in that group, have you used Pixelmator or Affinity Photo? Are they viable substitutes for Photoshop? I constantly hear or read that they do "almost everything Photoshop does, but at a much better price." It's the "almost" that makes me nervous. What do I lose if I move away from Photoshop? I'm also concerned about the QUALITY of the tools. When I switched to Photoshop in the mid-nineties I was amazed by how much better the colour conversions and anti-aliasing were than the app I'd been using before. The difference wasn't in the feature set, but how the results of certain features looked much better in Photoshop. Do Photo or Pixelmator hold up for real work?

The only way to tell is to complete every project at least twice -- once in Photoshop, then again in the substitute candidate -- and compare the results. That's time consuming (and boring) so I hope someone will have already made some assessments and can offer an opinion. I'd like to get off the Adobe Express, but I'm afraid I'll regret it and wind up paying even MORE to get back on.

capserghst42 · May 3, 2019 11:33AM

Greed, greed.... there is no other explanation. I for one still miss the perpetual license option, but it looks like Adobe like the subscription model more - forcing people pay to have a functional product. And yes, I do have an LR6 license, but one cannot open an LR CC library in LR6 :-(

foljs · May 3, 2019 12:15PM

lkrupp said:

Metriacanthosaurus said:

In other words, they’re testing to see if they can get away with doubling the price of their most popular subscription.

And so what if they are? People will pay it or not. They are not trying to get away with anything. It’s their product, they can charge whatever they want for it.

Yeah, you wouldn't understand, but some of those don't like to bend backwards for corporations to fuck us over with bait and switch. YMMV, some consumers are happy to bend over backwards and excuse companies.

Even if it's "their product".

Perhaps you would enjoy the company of mr. Shkreli -- after all he just raised the price of his product too:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/business/big-price-increase-for-an-old-drug-will-be-rolled-back-turing-chief-says.html

foljs · May 3, 2019 12:16PM

rotateleftbyte said:

The Adobe footgun seems to have been taken out of cold storage once again.

If Adobe double the costs to existing subscribers then I'll drop from Photoshop + Lightroom to just Lightroom.

Or just get Capture One Pro and ditch LR too -- at least that still offers a straight purchase option at $299 (as well as subscription for $180/year).

studiomusic · May 3, 2019 1:09PM

Adobe is the one that started all of this "consumers pay a subscription for the rest of their lives" crap. It's a great idea for corporate software (CRM, HCM...) for bigger companies that add or subtract seats every month, but for the creative community - where single-seat, independent, freelancers that don't have consistent revenues are a big demographic - it's a forced burden that you MUST pay every month until you no longer want access to your projects and files (basically for the rest of your life). Gone are the days where you upgraded every two or three years and could scrimp on by if you had to stretch it to four.

Avid does it correctly with Protools IMHO. You can get the subscription if you need it for a short while or are a large production facility with consistent cash flow, but you can also get the perpetual license that gives you access to everything for a year, but then still works indefinitely after the year ends.

Malheur a Adobe!

the monk · May 3, 2019 1:33PM

Metriacanthosaurus said:

In other words, they’re testing to see if they can get away with doubling the price of their most popular subscription.

And they are going to get away with it. Why? Because their users are going to let it happen. It’s why the subscription program has thrived at Adobe despite the grumbling. There’s plenty of other alternatives to Illustrator and Photoshop out there that are very good. I’m fine with Pixelmator, for example. I’m sure you could name a hundred draw backs why someone cannot leave Adobe software behind, but Until Adobe users take the risk of voting through their pocket books, Adobe will have all the power to screw everyone over.

rotateleftbyte · May 3, 2019 1:53PM

foljs said:

rotateleftbyte said:

The Adobe footgun seems to have been taken out of cold storage once again.

If Adobe double the costs to existing subscribers then I'll drop from Photoshop + Lightroom to just Lightroom.
Or just get Capture One Pro and ditch LR too -- at least that still offers a straight purchase option at $299 (as well as subscription for $180/year).

I looked at the Capture One site but it seemed more of a Photoshop replacement rather than Lightroom. My Photo library is close on 2.5TB (223,000 images) and growing at around 200Gb a year. I have various lightroom catalogues going back to 1997. I really don't want to lose that sort of functionality.

Photo Mechanic seems a possible Lightroom replacement.

OutdoorAppDeveloper · May 3, 2019 2:13PM

How is this not a rip off of some of its customers who don't know they are being charged double for no reason? When a software developer shows it has no ethics, don't expect customers to show ethics either. The torrents are rife with free copies of Adobe's products.

No, Adobe did not cancel its popular $10 Creative Cloud Photography plan

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