Adobe Has Gone to the Cloud. Should You Care?

Adobe has decided that the Photoshop and its suite of products will only be available as monthly rentals. Thankfully, LightRoom is not on the list. For most photographers, I don't believe it will be a big deal, as most will use LightRoom (or Aperture) to convert their RAW files and organize their photos. Personally, I only use Photoshop for some final adjustments and add boarders to my photos after exporting the pictures from LightRoom, and I will be just as happy with Photoshop version 7, or without Photoshop at all. It is the professional Photoshop users that are most affected. Adobe simply does not care about the little fish (consumers like me, who use almost none of Photoshop's advanced functions). They are after the big tuna; professionals and corporations who can afford it. It's all greed, if anyone asks me, but you'd better get ready for it; this is the future of software licensing.

Companies like Symantec has been doing this for many years. They charge an annual fee for virus definitions. The difference is that if you stop paying, your old virus definition is still functional. But with Adobe, your software won't work if you don't pay. One danger I see is that all the Photoshop files you have created, while you are using the software, and you can't open them if you are no longer a subscriber. This is just wrong. You are basically held hostage by Adobe. Perhaps that's what they are counting on for continuous subscription. If you want to open your files created with Photoshop, pay up!

As good as Adobe products are, I think it's time for me to consider alternative. Corel, Phase One, and many others offer RAW converters and image manipulation software. I am pretty sure more players will enter this market to fill the gap that Adobe has left open.

No software is irreplaceable. Not even Photoshop.

Untitled - Canon 10D & Pentacon 50mm f1.8. June, 2005.