| Joined: | Wed Apr 11th, 2012 |
| Location: | Melbourne, Australia |
| Posts: | 525 |
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Graham, that was my take, I have the entire CS5 curative suit, at considerable cost, but my Lightroom is (was) V3.6. I wanted to upgrade to current version but felt the upgrade was too steep a cost.
On 3rd Sept I upgraded Adobe Flash on my computer in response to an update prompt from the system, on completion I was greeted by a splash screen advertising Photoshop and Lightroom combo for £7.49 per month. It's a special offer for a year, which then rises to £8.78, OK I have stepped on the escalator but I now have the latest Adobe photo software at what I consider to be an affordable price. The special offer expired on 29th August but the purchase still went through at the offer price. A saving of over £12 for the year.
A single application is about £18 per month, so the Photo combo is very good value in comparison, in my opinion. I think Adobe have taken the view expressed by many that a lot of small sales will gross more than a few large sales and combat the black market of hacked installations. For a business it's totally tax deductible because it's rental.
As an existing customer of Adobe you are eligible for other significant discounts if you move over to their monthly plan.
As for the software being 'Cloud' based, functionally the entire software installation resides on your hardware, you are allowed two working copies, say one on desktop, one on laptop, and that's it. Once installed, you don't have to be connected to the internet, except occasionally to verify the installation, if it asks. The old CS versions do that anyway, they often 'phone home' to tell Adobe where they are and what hard drive they are on, if that doesn't match with Adobe records, Adobe sends out a shutdown message.
The 'Cloud' does NOT mean you are saving your files to the internet, although you could if you wanted to. Nor does it mean you are tethered to the 'Cloud' all the time. My understanding is you could install onto a laptop and go on safari for at least three months yet retain full functionality of the software, eventually if offers a warning it needs to verify and gives you some time to action before there is any limitation of the software.
I feel the term 'Cloud' is misleading, and puts many people such as yourself right off the idea. I felt that way until I became involved with the Apple iCloud, now I realise it is a positive move which greatly improves my life and my use of computers. The ability to synchronise things seamlessly across all my hardware. This will only improve over time.
A couple of links The Photo suit Photoshop and Lightroom combo:
https://creative.adobe.com/plans/photography?store_code=gb
Individual offers:
https://creative.adobe.com/plans?store_code=gb
And just to be clear I don't have any allegiance with Adobe, except I like their products! Just hope this puts a new perspective on the term 'Cloud'.
I can confirm that I didn't connect my laptop to the internet for 44 days and all still worked OK. I did get a message telling me that they had been unable to verify my account however.
Interestingly I did have a different problem in this time. I allowed my battery to go completely flat and for some reason the clock reset to 2001. Not being attached to the internet it didn't automatically reset, and none of my Adobe software would work until I had manually reset it.