Anyone else seriously considering Adobe's Creative Cloud? (1 Viewer)

Have CS3 and was looking to buy the new Master Collection CS6 with my academic discount, but now I'm really tempted by Creative Cloud. For regular users it's $49.99 a month and gives you full Master Collection access and all updates while you're an active subscriber, as well as other online-only specific benefits that buying a boxed CS6 doesn't give you.
For academics it gets even better $29.99 a month. And I'd get one bonus I never could have before when buying boxed CS versions: both Mac and PC. You can only authorize 2 computers I think I read, but one can be a Mac and one can be a PC.
Very tempting. Thoughts?

I use Lightroom for 99% of my photo work and FCPX for my videos. I am eligible for the $30 rate as a CS5 purchaser and I'm having a hard time committing. Granted it is only $360 for the year, but am I really going to use it enough to make it worth while? I don't use CS5 all that much as it is.

I will be signing up. I use InDesign, PhotoShop, Illustrator and Acrobat on a regular basis.

Another nice thing about the creative Cloud is that it is cross platform. Not only will you get access to the OS X stuff, you will get the Windows version as well. I often work with client files and while most of them are OS X based, some use Windows. In theory, the CS files can swap back and forth between operating systems but now I won't have to worry about any potential issues.

For someone that skips a version or two of the Creative Suite paying for the upgrade outright would probably better. Then just wait a few years before upgrading again. However, if you like to keep up to date and use the current version, the cloud seems like a reasonable way to go.

- Keith

We signed up for six accounts yesterday. The $50 a month basically gets you the master collection..everything. At $600/year, it's a cheaper/better deal then buying it outright at $2,600..

Matt and Keith--looking forward to your impressions. I will be using Photoshop, Acrobat Pro and Illustrator for sure. I want to learn how to use InDesign. And I'm looking forward to the web storage/access component of Creative Cloud. I'm so close to pulling the trigger...

Took the plunge. I work in higher education and they were running a special: $19.99 a month for the first year ($29.99 a month after the first year).
So glad I did! Already have the new Acrobat Pro 11 which made making forms for work so much easier. But the real gem that I just discovered was Premiere. Never used it before, never did any video editing before, but in one hour, I put together 4 1/2 minutes of 1080p video clips from my 2011 vacation in France with smooth transitions and set it to Radiohead's Reckoner.
Very, very cool. Just scratched the surface, can't wait to see how good I can get with Premiere once I learn how to actually use it!

40% off open to all for limited time:
http://www.photographybay.com/2013/04/17/adobe-creative-cloud-40-off-deal-ends-april-19/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PhotographyBay+%28Photography+Bay%29

Creative Suite is dead. It's now cloud or nothing (tho I suppose piracy is still an option for many)
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/05/06/after-nearly-10-years-adobe-abandons-its-creative-suite-entirely-to-focus-on-creative-cloud/

Bohica;
http://www.adobe.com/cc/letter.html

http://mashable.com/2013/05/06/adobe-subscription-pricing-only/

These sound cool tho:
http://xdce.adobe.com/mighty/

Full FAQ:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/faq.html

Most importantly you only have to be online during activation and once every 180 days.

Weird - multiple sites reporting that Photoshop CC was updated with several features including that camera shake compensation feature (which essentially works as software-based image stabilization if the demo last year was accurate). But I have launched my Adobe CC updater periodically throughout the day and haven't received a software update notification...

Not until June 17th Carlo.

More thoughts and common misperceptions:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/inside-creative-cloud/the-myths-of-adobe-creative-cloud/

Biscardi's thoughts:
http://walterbiscardi.com/what-adobe-creative-cloud-is-really-all-about/

Some more Qs and As:
http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/2327

Consumer website launched:

http://www.creativeclouduser.com

Terry has the top new features for half the components (no video stuff, figure BeetleJase will handle thos)
http://terrywhite.com/whats-new-in-photoshop-cc-illustrator-cc-indesign-cc-and-muse-cc/#more-12137

Wondering what this means for my wife, who upgrades every 4 years. She uses Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign.

Dave - basically if you don't want to pay subscription model, the last change you'll have to buy a perpetual license (physical media) is CS6. So buy it now and hope that it will keep your wife happy for 4 or more years. Once Adobe CC starts having new features she can't live without, then you'll have to go CC subscription.

Dave,

I am just like your wife, although not nearly as pretty, I'm sure. I tend to upgrade the Master Collection every 4-5 years. For me it currently breaks down to roughly $300/year for me to do that. The new model will force me to pay $600/year. Doubling what I pay per year for software is a huge increase. This change will have little impact on big firms that update their software with every new release, but it will significantly hurt the small independent freelancers like myself. I'm currently on CS5, and I really had no intentions of buying CS6, but I may have to change my plans. Bummer.

Uh ohm, guess who just found out!?!?

Carlo Medina said:

Dave - basically if you don't want to pay subscription model, the last change you'll have to buy a perpetual license (physical media) is CS6. So buy it now and hope that it will keep your wife happy for 4 or more years. Once Adobe CC starts having new features she can't live without, then you'll have to go CC subscription.

Click to expand...

Or if you buy a camera and shoot raw and there is no ACR support for it in the old busted version you use. Then you have no choice.

Some interesting clarifications and potential backpedaling by Adobe VP of Creative Solutions Winston Hendrickson in an interview posted by Digital Photography Review

Some relevant quotes (emphasis mine)

Is a subscription model less prone to piracy?
While service options that connect to our servers are inherently less prone to piracy, once a user downloads software to their computer the piracy threat is the same as for our perpetual products.
The reason behind the subscription-only move is the logistics of supporting two sets of software. The last 12 months of development was brutal. And there were results we were not happy with. We have decided to focus on the CC products.
As far as the future of CS applications, in his Adobe MAX keynote, David Wadhwani said, 'We have no plans' to continue perpetual licenses. We are not ruling that out in the future.

Click to expand...

Lightroom is currently not planned to be subscription only, so perhaps there's hope that Adobe RAW will still be available without CC or Photoshop subscription, if you're a Lightroom owner:

What assurances can our readers have that Lightroom will not become a subscription-only option?
[Bryan O'Neil Hughes] Lightroom is for photographers. And the Lightroom team is very aware of the reaction by photographers to Photoshop CC. We don't have plans to make Lightroom a subscription-only option but we do envision added functionality for CC members using Lightroom.

Click to expand...

Pricing aside, my biggest issue with the whole Creative Cloud model is that my access to my own content that I've created using Adobe products is essentially being held hostage indefinitely for the ransom of $50/month. It's not uncommon that a client wants an old InDesign brochure I've created for them updated several years after the fact. Or maybe I want to add some newer photos to the beautiful Mother's Day video I made for my wife in Premiere. Even if I never update my Adobe software again, I'll be able to do that, because I have a hard copy of CS5 that I can use for the rest of my life as long as I maintain a computer that can run it.

But if I go to Creative Cloud, I have to keep paying $50/month for the rest of my life if I want to have access to my own content, because my hard copy of CS5 will be unable to open any files I create with newer versions of the software unless I painstakingly save all of my files as older versions (and sometimes that can still be a little buggy). And if I stop paying, I lose the applications required to open and manipulate my content altogether. So I'd have a hard drive full of files with which I can do nothing if I'm not forking over $600 a year to Adobe, and potentially more if they ever decide to raise their rates. What the hell is that? It's like the old DIVX model, except I'm paying somebody else for the ability to view my own content. That's nuts.

I like being in charge of the timing of my purchases. My wife and I save up for things, and when we have enough money, we buy them. This system allows for prioritizing our saving and spending. So while I slowly save up for a newer version of Adobe software over a few years, if I suddenly needed to replace the furnace, I can make that a priority and delay my software upgrade until the following year. But with the subscription based model, I'm tied to that $600 every year if I want to be able to keep creating with Adobe's software regardless of what else may come up in life. I'm married with four kids -- unexpected expenditures come up. If I didn't have the flexibililty to move around where my money is going, I'd most certainly find myself with credit card debt slowly piling up to make things work.

Very well stated Jacinto.

One thing that hasn't gotten much traction here is the App Store Model, which Adobe has Eschewed, mostly because they (duh) aren't the gatekeepers to the kingdom like Apple, Microsoft and Google are.

You buy FCPX and Acorn and you have them for life, always available from the store so long as it is still standing. That's compelling to me.

And it cuts out piracy as much or more than the Cloud does.

BUT it cuts off those 800lb gorilla vendors like Adobe from being directly tied to their customers and that KILLS them,

And the App Store isn't perfect - one of the main complaints from smaller companies who use it is that it does not allow for upgrade pricing. You buy it once, get free upgrades within the version number, then buy it again when the next major version comes out, at the same price as everyone else, no bonus for previous purchasing.

But a much lesser evil than pure subscription pricing to be sure.