Photoshop Photography Program

Lower Doane's Falls, Royalston, Massachusetts

Such a Deal
Like many Photoshop fans, Adobe's announcement this spring of the Creative Cloud was annoying and disconcerting. Since Photoshop has been an essential part of my creative workflow, I have been upgrading my versions of the program since Photoshop 5. I have always felt that keeping up to date was part of the routine cost of doing business. What price do you put on magic that keeps getting more magical every year.

Subscription Shock
Adobe's switch to a subscription model was a shock. We were told that former users of the program could subscribe to Photoshop CC for the first year at a monthly rate of $9.95. Not too painful, but after the first year the cost would go up to the regular, one

Standard One Application "Deal"

application, price of 19.99. At $240/ year, things were getting pricey and then there was the problem that if I canceled the subscription, I would have nothing but my, increasingly obsolete, last purchased version, CS 6. It seemed like Adobe was attempting to enslave us to be part of their guaranteed cash flow. I felt trapped and betrayed by an old friend. I had just bought Lightroom 5, primarily for the data base, but I was considering using that as my RAW editor and my CS6 whenever I wanted to push pixels. After much agonizing, I finally decided to go with Photoshop CC for the first year and then decide if it was worth paying the price to continue.

The Uproar
There were legions of loyal customers out there in the same dilemma and Adobe heard the screams. We are all willing to pay for powerful tools to perfect our images, but we don't want to feel abused and taken for granite. To their credit Adobe listened and, recognizing the special needs of photographers, came up with a much more reasonable deal.

The Photographers Creative Cloud
In early September, the Photoshop Photography Program was announced. It not only includes Photoshop CC, but also Lightroom 5, 20 GB of cloud storage, a Behance ProSite, and ongoing upgrades and updates,  all for $9.99/month. That is what I was paying for Photoshop CC alone and is cheaper than what It used to cost to purchase the regular updates of these programs. Seems to be a no-brainer, but there must be a catch.
http://blogs.adobe.com/creativelayer/introducing-the-photoshop-photography-program/

There is Always a Catch
The first catch is that the program is only available to those with a registered copy of Photoshop CS3 or later and you must "join thecloud" by December 31, 2013 The 

Lightroom 5

Plan requires an annual commitment with monthly billing. There is no automatic doubling of the cost after the first year, but the fine print makes it clear that Adobe reserves the right to increase the price after that. In my chats with the folks at Adobe Support, I was told that there is no current plan for an increase, but who knows. I find it difficult to believe that Adobe would create this program only to enrage everyone again after the first year, but at some point, it is inevitable that the price will increase. Of course Adobe will always have the power to adjust the price of their products, but for the time being, I prefer to believe that this a good faith effort to meet the needs of their loyal customers. For years Photoshop has held a unique position in the market, but there are lots of competitors out there who would love to scoop up flocks of disgruntled photographers. Photographers have a low threshold for "disguntaltude".  It is now a word - feel free to use it!

Biting the Bullet
So last week I finally made the switch to the Photographer's Plan. Itwas a bit confusing for the Adobe folks since I had to cancel myPhotoshop CC subscription and then sign up for the new plan, 

Photoshop CC

but everything seems to be working fine. I updated my Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC and now all I have to do is wait to see if I get charged twice. For me it seems like a good deal, especially as I have altered my workflow to use Lightroom 5 as my importer and RAW developer. I will talk another time about how excited I am to finally get into Lightroom, but who else should snap up this deal from Adobe.

The Photographer Plan seems made for those of us who update Photoshop regularly. This appears especially true for those who useLightroom as well, but for Photographers who rely on Photoshop

Upper Doane's Falls

alone, it is great chance to try this powerful image management software. Who knows what other deals Adobe might eventually offer, but, at least for now, if you don't have a licensed copy of CS3 or later, or if you miss the December 31st deadline, your photoshop updates will come through the cloud at the $240 per year price. For now Adobe is planning to continue to sell and update licensed copies of Lightroom. Many people are happy using Lightroom for photo management and editing, but Lightroom alone will not qualify you for the Photographer's Plan.

Overall I think photographers have been happy with Adobe's special deal. It give us what we need without charging for a lot we don't. I can live with it at least until the next announcement from my Adobe overlords.  I would love to hear what you think of this new offering.

For more info:

Photoshop Photography Program


Jeffrey Newcomer
Partridgebrookreflections.com