Michael Seltzer
New member
I didn't see anything posted here, though it seems unlikely I'd be the first on the forums to know about this (I'm never the first to know), but Adobe has changed there upgrade policy: starting with CS6 (due out shortly) only owners of CS5 or 5.5 will get upgrade pricing. Everyone else will have to pay full price. So from now on it's either upgrade every time or wait it out long enough to justify the $800 or so it will cost to buy new.
This is part of a disturbing trend (like the .5 upgrades). As someone over at the NAPP forums has pointed out (chuckzwood), I think this is related to the annual cloud-subscriptions: Adobe is going to an annual fee basis no matter what--either subscription or forced upgrades each time a new version comes out. If so, in the near future, the cloud-based subscription may be the only option available.
I can't afford that. There are probably others like me as well, maybe a lot of us out there, who depend on PS in our work, but don't have the resources to upgrade every time, or buy a subscription. Adobe can do this because they are really the only game in town. So I have a suggestion. It may sound like an angry, knee-jerk reaction, but it's been fulminating for awhile, and it's a serious suggestion…
Open a fund. If everyone who owns PS now would contribute $100 (half the cost to upgrade PS alone) to the fund, we could put together a sizable amount. Then we could use the fund to hire a core team of programmers/designers, and support the development of an open source editor that could really do the job. Probably best to start with what's out there, something like the GIMP. And there are good programmers out there with experience in graphic/photo editing. Fabbio Riccardi comes to mind--Lightzone was an innovative program. I have no connection with Lightzone, it's just a thought to show that the resources necessary to do this are available, if the community is interested.
Once underway, we could look at developing other programs as open source, vector-graphics and page-layout, but probably best to start with the basic editor.
We need options, no matter why Adobe is making these decisions. In an increasingly digitally-based art world, having one program able to exert this much control is unhealthy.
This is part of a disturbing trend (like the .5 upgrades). As someone over at the NAPP forums has pointed out (chuckzwood), I think this is related to the annual cloud-subscriptions: Adobe is going to an annual fee basis no matter what--either subscription or forced upgrades each time a new version comes out. If so, in the near future, the cloud-based subscription may be the only option available.
I can't afford that. There are probably others like me as well, maybe a lot of us out there, who depend on PS in our work, but don't have the resources to upgrade every time, or buy a subscription. Adobe can do this because they are really the only game in town. So I have a suggestion. It may sound like an angry, knee-jerk reaction, but it's been fulminating for awhile, and it's a serious suggestion…
Open a fund. If everyone who owns PS now would contribute $100 (half the cost to upgrade PS alone) to the fund, we could put together a sizable amount. Then we could use the fund to hire a core team of programmers/designers, and support the development of an open source editor that could really do the job. Probably best to start with what's out there, something like the GIMP. And there are good programmers out there with experience in graphic/photo editing. Fabbio Riccardi comes to mind--Lightzone was an innovative program. I have no connection with Lightzone, it's just a thought to show that the resources necessary to do this are available, if the community is interested.
Once underway, we could look at developing other programs as open source, vector-graphics and page-layout, but probably best to start with the basic editor.
We need options, no matter why Adobe is making these decisions. In an increasingly digitally-based art world, having one program able to exert this much control is unhealthy.