Major Pricing Change for Adobe Upgrades Coming

[mistermonday]

Originally Posted by lkroll

It was sort of worth it to me to upgrade from CS2 to CS5 (gpu acceleration, content aware, and a few additional cool tools though I admit I've not really used them much since I'm a GIMP guy, but $215 was a lot to pay for an upgrade so I don't spend money that often until I have no choice). I have no problem upgraded every 3rd like I did (started PS 5.5, PS 7.0, CS2 and now CS5), but to be forced to upgrade every cycle now doesn't make sense to me and I hope I don't get a cameral that requires a new version in order to use my camera's RAW file in CSx any time soon. Main motivation even using Photoshop is RAW processing and might just wait a while and just use Lightroom (as long as it's reasonable and doesn't require to upgrade every cycle) a few years from now. If any of you guys know of a reasonable cost effect replacement to ACR that's decent, please let me know; UFRaw doesn't cut it for me (yes, I have it and sometimes use it rarely, but it's no where near an ACR replacement).

Lyle, Photoengine by Oloneo is a really great RAW processor. The application's primary intent is aimed at HDR processing. However, it was designed to also process RAW images. It is constantly updated for free with the newest cameras as they are released. The product, which will also work on jpg and tiff files has the standard Low Dynamic Range controls like brightness, contrast, exposure, saturation, tint, temperature but also has controls for tonal inversion, global and local contrast enhancement, and others. It has a set of 3 graphical control panels which are analogous to the 3 HSL tabs in ACR. The product is expensive ($149) if all you want is a RAW processor but if you plan to do any HDR work, it may be worth the investment. There is a free trial available at Oloneo.com
Regards, Murray

[lkroll]

I actually did participate in Oloneo's beta a few months back; didn't notice anything special with RAW processing then and was actually motivated by it's ability to tone map even jpegs quite well, but got sort of turned off at the cost. If you believe it's that good at processing RAW files and does a good job at camera support, then it will be added to my list of future applications for RAW processing along with Lightroom and I will weigh which way I go then. I don't think I will ever upgrade past CS5 but then again, who really knows the future. I never planned to go past PS7 either (GIMP guy remember? lol), but getting a camera that required RAW processing motivated me to upgrade to CS2 at $150 (big deal going on at Best Buy at that time). I upgraded from CS2 to CS5 since I've since updated to Win7 64-bit and wanted a 64-bit version of PS as well as I wanted to experiment more with the GPU accelerated filters (Pixelbender) which I have to say am quite impressed with (but only did some play; pretty happy with my GIMP flow but the GPU filters are extremely fast. Even upgraded my video card because of Pixelbender; lol). To have to go to CS6 next year to me is ridiculous; frugal I am and I make no holds bar about it. I'm not a professional though; just an enthusiastic amateur. Anyway, I hope Adobe has really done their research w.r.t. this decision. They are going to loose a lot of future amateur but highly experienced in Photoshop users and will end up having to charge way too much in order to make money from the fewer professional users they seem to now want to target for. Oh well; makes selling GIMP easier to folk now. lol

[Shoku]

I have been using Photoshop since version 3. I have been frustrated over the years with some of the changes, and overjoyed with other changes. Overall a great program and very robust regarding color management, which is the top of my list for reasons to use the program. However, there are other applications out there that have also made leaps and bounds across the quality threshold. An example:
http://www.xara.com/us/
The more other software is able to compete with Adobe on a professional level, the more likely their pricing with come down as their monopoly diminishes.

[plugsnpixels]

It just dawned on me that a lot of Apple Final Cut Pro users bailed to Adobe Premier upon the release of Final Cut X. I wonder what they will do now-??

[plugsnpixels]

The customers ask:

[lkroll]

lol; looks like you are taking this too personally plugs. I just continue to use GIMP. lol

[plugsnpixels]

Actually my daughter made that for me (and a bunch of others saying all sorts of things for her friends...). It's the latest popular thing with teens, I guess, along with chibis. Just having some fun :-)