Anyone dropped out of the Adobe CC Subscription?

[gramps]

I've had Adobe CC for a while but this month decided to go back to my copy of CS6.
I tend to open my RAW files in Nikon Capture NX-D and after any adjustments import into Photoshop as .tiff files.
Anyone else dropped out of the CC Subscription?
Any regrets?

[Mike Buckley]

What were the most important factors that motivated you to end the subscription?

[davidedric]

No, but I bought it for Lightroom, and Photoshop was a sort of bonus.

Dave

[gramps]

What were the most important factors that motivated you to end the subscription?

Purely financial, the £ has plummeted and that led to an increase in the subscription charge, this led me to reason 'Why, when you already have CS6 which you paid for?'. It's small change in terms of photographic costs but as one UK supermarket is known to say "Every little helps".

[gramps]

No, but I bought it for Lightroom, and Photoshop was a sort of bonus.

Dave

I also have a copy of Lightroom 5 but although I've tried it a few times I just don't get on with it so it doesn't feature in my decision.

[rpcrowe]

I have a copy of CS6 but, still keep up my subscription to CC.

However, I have dropped a subscription to an entirely different medium, the DIRECTV National Football League package. I did this in response to our city losing our NFL football team (San Diego Chargers are now Los Angeles Chargers) and because DIRECTV is not carrying the Pacific Twelve college football games (I have ties to the University of Southern California). I am purchasing an alternate supplier of these games and intend to use part of the money that I save on my DIRECTV subscription to pay for SlingTV (which does carry the Pac-12 college games).

[JohnRostron]

I have ended my Adobe subsription for Photoshop, Lightroom and Dreamweaver, mainly for cost reasons. I now use Affinity for my photo editing, ACDSee as a DAM and Dreamweaver CS3 for webpage work. I stll have to resort tp PS CS6 for scanning, which Affinity does not currently support.

John

[James G]

I have had a CC subscription for 18 months (previously CS6). Overall happy with the product but 'uncomfortable' with the subscription.

Recently I came across Affinity by Serif. when John mentioned it. in a post. It costs £50 ... no subscription.

It seems to have most of the features I want, including the ability to read my existing PSD layered files, and is 'structured much the way CC/CS6 is. It also seems to have all the 'bells and whistles' I'm familiar with in the Adobe package.

Since my archive of PSD files is now 'transferable' and readable in Affinity, I am now actively starting to 'learn' how to use it.

If, in 3 to 6 months, I am satisfied it gives me everything I need, I will cease my CC subscription.

(I also noted that Serif provide an alternative to Illustrator for £50.)

[Acorn]

As with all software packages there is a learning curve. I started out with Photoshop Elements but then graduated to Lightroom 6 (a purchased package) which I like. I took a trial look at Serif’s Affinity and it seemed a versatile piece of software but I stuck with Lightroom. There’s no disrespect for Affinity because during my professional life I used the company’s equally versatile DTP software to good effect when I edited a magazine and feel they are a good outfit.

I was not prepared to go down the Adobe CC route because the company is essentially geared to serving the requirements of commercial operations where a monthly subscription is deemed chicken-feed and can also be written off against tax.
I feel that in keeping with its policy of continuous product development, Affinity could well become a very serious competitor to Adobe’s Photoshop CC.

[gramps]

I have ended my Adobe subsription for Photoshop, Lightroom and Dreamweaver, mainly for cost reasons. I now use Affinity for my photo editing, ACDSee as a DAM and Dreamweaver CS3 for webpage work. I stll have to resort tp PS CS6 for scanning, which Affinity does not currently support.

John

I have had a CC subscription for 18 months (previously CS6). Overall happy with the product but 'uncomfortable' with the subscription.

Recently I came across Affinity by Serif. when John mentioned it. in a post. It costs £50 ... no subscription.

It seems to have most of the features I want, including the ability to read my existing PSD layered files, and is 'structured much the way CC/CS6 is. It also seems to have all the 'bells and whistles' I'm familiar with in the Adobe package.

Since my archive of PSD files is now 'transferable' and readable in Affinity, I am now actively starting to 'learn' how to use it.

If, in 3 to 6 months, I am satisfied it gives me everything I need, I will cease my CC subscription.

(I also noted that Serif provide an alternative to Illustrator for £50.)

I would be interested in your longer term experience with Affinity, I didn't like the beta and heard mediocre reports early on so would like to know if it now lives up to its initial expectations.

[pnodrog]

As I was approaching retirement when the CC subscription model started I decided it would eventually become too costly. Purchased CS6 at a very good price with Lightroom thrown in.

Very interested in your exit strategy and will all the PSD files be backward compatible or will you need to flatten them or save in another format?

Anyone trying Lightroom with Affinity setup as the optional editor?

[gramps]

Very interested in your exit strategy and will all the PSD files be backward compatible or will you need to flatten them or save in another format?

As I understand it .psd files will not be backward compatible but I've never been one for saving in .psd, I just keep the RAW files and save the ones I process as .jpeg so I'm not too concerned about that.
As for accessing RAW files from later cameras, for some time now I have been opening them (D500) in Nikon NX-D and importing as .tiff files into Photoshop and I will continue to do that.

[NorthernFocus]

I'm actually headed th opposite way. For financial reasons I never subscribed. I've come to the conclusion that it's false economy. Both in currency and hassle factor. Unless one is committed to freeware the cost of upgrades etc. is at best nearly on par with the subscription. Plus there's the hassle of using multiple packages for all the functionality.

[Cantab]

I've had CS6 for a number of years. I'd also had Lightroom 4.4 but needed to upgrade it to Lightroom 6. So I thought very carefully about switching to the CC subscription.

But some simple arithmetic showed me that the upgrade price was around ten months of subscription. So I'll be ahead of the game in only another few months, instead of having locked into the never ending subscription.

At some point my CS6 and Lightroom 6 may become too dated, but not yet.

[James G]

Further to my earlier post and my 'deciding factor' to investigate Affinity', I should probably clarify my interest in it's ability to import PSD files in a layered format.

In one sense though it doesn't really matter as long as I can 'switch off specific layers that have been imported.
I usually embed a layer which is a brightness adjustment for printing, sometimes several, if I have different print/paper options.
So avoiding having to go through all my PSD files flattening to tiff and checking and renaming for the print versions in order to migrate away from CC is a major advantage to me.

[JohnRostron]

Affinity will import PSD files with layers, but not smart objects. These get rasterized to a pixel layer. As the Affinity forums make clear, PSD is an Adobe proprietary format and Serif are not privy to the full specifications. Don't let that put you off. Affinity is well worth the switch (and the ditch).

John

[Acorn]

Encouraging to read what I see as good reports for Affinity. It's always been in the back of my mind but I am tempted to bring it to the front and invest 50 quid. Unless I can find a decent price for an outright purchase of CS6, there's no way I'll go down the subscription route.

[ajohnw]

I haven't been around on here for a while. The basic CC subscription hasn't gone up as much as I thought it would. Looking like around £100 PA now not help by the drop in GBP. I run Linux so immaterial to me and usually causes people to think I can't pay for things. It's just a choice I made many years ago. Oddly I do have CS6 on a laptop. Buying it now may prove difficult. I bought a copy of ebay around the time the subscriptions came out. Said to be legitimate. Ebay stepped in and refunded me later. That just happened, nothing to do with me. Seller got annoyed but my conclusion was that it wasn't legitimate so I ignored him.

I have played around with it but frankly I don't like it. This is probably down to having learned to use what I do use to achieve the sort of results I am happy with. Sometimes I play around to produce what I refer to a a PS look as seen on some photo's but that isn't what I am after.

John
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[gramps]

I haven't been around on here for a while. The basic CC subscription hasn't gone up as much as I thought it would. Looking like around £100 PA now not help by the drop in GBP. I run Linux so immaterial to me and usually causes people to think I can't pay for things. It's just a choice I made many years ago. Oddly I do have CS6 on a laptop. Buying it now may prove difficult. I bought a copy of ebay around the time the subscriptions came out. Said to be legitimate. Ebay stepped in and refunded me later. That just happened, nothing to do with me. Seller got annoyed but my conclusion was that it wasn't legitimate so I ignored him.

I have played around with it but frankly I don't like it. This is probably down to having learned to use what I do use to achieve the sort of results I am happy with. Sometimes I play around to produce what I refer to a a PS look as seen on some photo's but that isn't what I am after.

John
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So are you using CC, CS6 or something else currently?

[ajohnw]

I have a laptop with windows on it so just have CS6 installed on that. The laptop sees very little use. Main reason for having it is to upload firmware to various things. Not always a problem on Linux but can be especially on things like cameras. Actually upgrading the laptop for that use really hurt. It had to have win10 on it too but I think the one it replaced was about 10 years old.

Edit - Actually the one it replaced had win2000 on it so very probably older than that.

John
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