[Racer X 69]

So far i've not experience software to go through a major change that breaks the old workflow.
do you've any examples?

It would take far too much time and effort to go back through the cobwebs of my brain and dig them up. Suffice to say it happens, and can be problematic.

I don't see why open source is exempt from this...

Since dumping MicroS*** Office products in favor of Open Office 5 years ago, I have not had to update once. The software continues to operate well and documents created have been fully portable when converted and sent to others who have Word, Excel, etc.

I have a copy of Gimp, but have yet to take the time to install it in place of Photoshop. But again, I don't foresee the need to constantly upgrade to the latest version.

[Anvh]

But since you also need to think hard is it fair to say those are the exceptions of the rule?

Most recent biggest changes i can think of are Windows 8 (although most changes are visual), Adobe camera raw 7 (they changed the way the exposure sliders work), Final cut pro X, office 2010. From those only final cut pro really changed the workflow and feature and office 2010 hid everything... The rest didn't had an impact where i had to get used to. Some do hate win8 though but all shortcuts that i use work and the way i use the start menu actually works better with metro.

But office program is quite a bit different, it's not like they reinvent the wheel all the time. The development has stalled. Some people have enough with wordpad and that has changed only little over 17 years.

With photshop it depends on your needs, i like content aware and the new deblur tool looks like a nice adetion. But everything sicne CS2 is still pretty much up to date, the version before that have made some big competbility changes and have some feature changes like 16 bit layers and such.

[magkelly]

In all honesty I was not thrilled with PS CS6. It's been very buggy for me compared to the past few versions. I've had issues with plugins not working and while I was okay with give PS a new video card and more memory, those things needed to be upgraded anyway, I was not so happy with the constant lag upon start up and the myriad random small errors that I was experiencing while using CS6. FYI, I am running it on a fast machine with plenty of memory, a good graphics card etc and no amount of patching seemed to address any of that. I had pretty much gone back to using CS2 a lot for the sake of being able to avoid all that and use my older plugs. But I got my copy as a gift and I didn't feel I could really vetch too much under the circumstances.

(I've got a good friend at Adobe and that's all I am going to say about that.)

Last night the person who gave me my CS6 gave me a legit key for PS CC and somehow arranged a non-paying subscription to the cloud for one year. So I guess I have got a year now regardless to decide if I like CC and if I want to join the stupid cloud or um, deal with it? :P I really wish you could just buy an upgrade to CC outright. $149 or so I could afford to just upgrade my PS CS6. But this way I'd be paying $240 a year just for PS, and that will add up...

I like what I am seeing of it and how stable it seems to be running compared to CS6 but I really don't want to live in eternal debt to the tune of $20-50 a month (or more) just to be able to continue using it when my subscription is up. That may not seem like that much but some months that would really be money I could ill afford. I was reading somewhere though that I might be able to take the cost off my taxes though every year so maybe that will help somewhat if I decide to go there. We'll see.

I just really hate the idea of the subscription plan thing though. It goes totally against my grain but CS6 is majorly buggy and CC is running so nicely that I'm having to think hard about it. CS6 it took almost 90 secs to load, even sans my plugs sometimes. CC it loads with plugs in about 25 secs so it's a huge difference.

[Racer X 69]

But since you also need to think hard is it fair to say those are the exceptions of the rule?

Sure! You could say that. There are always exceptions to the "rule".

Everyone has a different approach, and we all have varying needs.

[Docrwm]

Here's a piece of software that "breaks the old workflow" - Windows 8. I know that at least one person here will disagree, that's ok - they disagree with nearly everything simply to be disagreeable. It does not alter the fact that masses of corporations have rejected Win8 because it is a pain in the rear to use, breaks the old work flow, and was designed by a committee. Even MicroSoft, which has never admitted even one mistake, has quietly said they will offer it with the traditional interface. The main message is that the interface change resulted in most old habits and workflow processes being disrupted for zero gain from a user standpoint.

[Anvh]

The main message is that the interface change resulted in most old habits and workflow processes being disrupted for zero gain from a user standpoint.

The major change is indeed the interface, if you like it or not is a personal thing but i'm very curious to hear exampels on how it breaks the workflow to make what you're saying a bit more heavy. From what i experience is that people are making it a problem only because it looks different even though it function almost preciesly the same.
They are going to bring back the start button again with the upcoming service pack, funny enough you can click on the left lower corner and go to start already. So basically they are putting an icon there and that's it and people are happy about that, this what i mean with simply a visual change. Just shows how simple people sometimes are

The gain with windows 8 is unity (in workflow somewhat) and compatibility across devices, if you like it or not is a different story but surely you can see some value in that right.

[wildman]

In all honesty I was not thrilled with PS CS6. It's been very buggy for me compared to the past few versions. I've had issues with plugins not working and while I was okay with give PS a new video card and more memory, those things needed to be upgraded anyway, I was not so happy with the constant lag upon start up and the myriad random small errors that I was experiencing while using CS6. FYI, I am running it on a fast machine with plenty of memory, a good graphics card etc and no amount of patching seemed to address any of that. I had pretty much gone back to using CS2 a lot for the sake of being able to avoid all that and use my older plugs.

It really sounds like you are having issues unique to your setup.

I'm running CS6 on a modest machine that is nothing special - 8 gigs of ram on a 50 buck AMD two core processor and a 50 buck video card.

Just for hell of it I timed a fresh PS load (not yet in ram) and it loaded in 22 sec with the following plugins which, by the way, don't give me a lick of trouble.

Somethings not right with your setup.

Optional and third party plug-ins:

Alien Skin Autolayer 3 3.0.0 20463 2012-03-23 12:39
Alien Skin Autolayer 4 4.0.0
BackgroundFilter 2.2.0.22656
BW Styler 1.06 1, 0, 0, 0
Color Efex Pro 4 4,20
ColorStyler 1.02 1, 0, 0, 0
ContrastMaster 1.06 1, 0, 0, 0
Dfine 2 2.2.0.22656
Exposure 4 4.0.0
FineStructuresFilter 2.2.0.22656
Fix Motion Blur 4.00
Fix Out-of-focus Blur 4.00
FocalBlade 2.02 2, 0, 0, 0
FocalPoint 2.1 2.1.1
FocalPoint 2.1 Filter 2.1.1
FocalPoint 2.1 Smart Filter 2.1.1
HDR Efex Pro 2 2,10
HotPixelsFilter 2.2.0.22656
iCorrect OneClick 2.0 2.0.0b0
LightMachine 1.06 1, 0, 0, 0
LucisArt 3 ED NO VERSION
LucisArt 3 SE NO VERSION
Merge to HDR Efex Pro 2 2,10
Nik Collection Selective Tool 2.1.5.22621
Noiseware 2.3.0.9
Perfect BW 1 1.0.3
Perfect BW 1 Filter 1.0.3
Perfect BW 1 Smart Filter 1.0.3
Perfect Effects 4 4.0.4
Perfect Effects 4 Filter 4.0.4
Perfect Effects 4 Smart Filter 4.0.4
Perfect Mask 5.2 5.2.3
Perfect Mask 5.2 Filter 5.2.3
Perfect Mask 5.2 Smart Filter 5.2.3
Perfect Portrait 2 2.0.3
Perfect Portrait 2 Filter 2.0.3
Perfect Portrait 2 Smart Filter 2.0.3
Perfect Resize 7.5 7.5.3
Perfect Resize 7.5 Engine Automation 7.5.3
Perfect Resize 7.5 Engine Filter 7.5.3
Perfect Resize 7.5 Filter 7.5.3
Perfect Resize Format 7.5.3
Perfectly Clear 1.6.0
PG-Processor 2.0.1
PhotoKit Capture Sharpener 2 2.0.7
PhotoKit Creative Sharpener 2 2.0.7
PhotoKit Output Sharpener 2 2.0.7
PhotoKit Preview Helper 2.2.3
PixelGenius Toolbox 2.2.9
ShadowsFilter 2.2.0.22656
Sharpener Pro 3: (1) RAW Presharpener 3.1.0.22665
Sharpener Pro 3: (2) Output Sharpener 3.1.0.22665
Silver Efex Pro 2 2,100
SkinFilter 2.2.0.22656
SkyFilter 2.2.0.22656
StrongNoiseFilter 2.2.0.22656
Topaz Adjust 5 10.0
Topaz BW Effects 10.0
Topaz Clarity 10.0
Topaz Clean 3 10.0
Topaz DeJpeg 4 10.0
Topaz DeNoise 5 10.0
Topaz Detail 2 10.0
Topaz InFocus 10.0
Topaz Lens Effects 10.0
Topaz ReMask 3 10.0
Topaz Simplify 3 10.0
Topaz Simplify 3 10.0
TopazRemaskAutomate NO VERSION
Viveza 2 2.1.0.22656
VueScan 1.0.00
Plug-ins that failed to load: NONE

[magkelly]

My set up has actually been analyzed by someone who would know, smile, and there was nothing wrong with it that doubling my RAM and getting a better video card shouldn't have been able to cure. It was little stuff. Nothing major except that fact that PS was excruciatingly slow to load and there were some plugs that it just did not seem to run very well despite a major plug upgrades. Every once in a great while a certain tool would wig out or the brush settings would do wonky. The main problem I was having, the slow loading, that was one that a lot of people were experiencing and it seems to be totally gone in CC so that kink must have been totally worked out. I mean here I am running CC same set up, same exact plugs and it's loading very fast and every plug is working just fine, in fact I've been able to run a few older plugs that CS5 and CS6 seemingly did not like at all and that did not have upgrades because they are not being supported now. Have a look around the Adobe forum. If you have had no issues at all you're pretty fortunate. CS6 was a little quirky for a lot of people not just me.

I must admit so far CC is impressive. I am really liking a lot of the new stuff. This is a major upgrade definitely and I am intrigued by a lot of it. I'm just not sure it's worth putting myself into eternal hock to Adobe to maintain it. If they would just let you continue using it after say the 1st year sans any upgrades if you wanted to stay at a certain version for a while I might be more willing to go for it. But that's not how it works. I'd be paying and upgrading every time regardless whether I wanted to or not. It works out to a lot of money even at $20 a month for me. Not to mention I don't really like the idea of Adobe automatically charging something on my CC every month. It kind of defeats the purpose of making payments every month if you never get to see a zero balance on your card and I do like to do that eventually, get to a zero balance and even not use it at all for a while...

[Class A]

CS6 it took almost 90 secs to load, even sans my plugs sometimes. CC it loads with plugs in about 25 secs so it's a huge difference.

I checked how long it takes PS CS6 to start on my laptop (no SSD, not super powerful):
First time: ~23s.
Second time: <5s.

So, first, I'd say something does not appear to be quite right with your installation. Maybe you installed it when your hard drive was pretty fragmented?
My first installation of InDesign CS6 started in practically no time. It was wonderful. Then it played up (IIRC I just had "CapsLock" pressed and this changed some fundamental behaviour) and I reinstalled it. From then on, it has been the same old slow crawl to becoming ready is the case with most (Adobe) software.

Like you, I loath the idea of basically diverting part of my income to Adobe automatically. I can imagine myself sticking to CS6 for a very long time and hence would pay less in the regular model. I would not even want cloud updates because, as you know, they are not always an improvement.

As for CC being wonderful now, note this could change with the next update. Can you opt out of updates in the subscription model? If not, it would be another "no, no" for me. Not that I'd needed one.

[Anvh]

You're not force to update and you can revert/download older versions.
So if you're working on a project you can freeze the state of the program so it wouldn't update.

There is no fundemental difference between CS6 and CC, the only difference is that new features are added over time instead of a new release every 2 years. Since changes are made gradually i would suspect it would be more stable then a first version release.

[MADDSNIPER]

Just to add my install of photoshop cs6 with a handful of plugins loads in 12 seconds, and once its in the cache around 2 seconds loads it. Thats on a non solid state drive, 8gigs ram a 3570k and a gtx 570, windows 7 64bit.

[magkelly]

Okay guys, I'm going to say this again, more specifically. My CS6 set up has been okayed by someone who would KNOW, IE by someone who was there and helped to DESIGN the CS6 suite. I got my Adobe DVD straight from an employee of Adobe, a designer there, a buddy. It was completely legit. My machine was a relatively new machine but still I upgraded some of my tech as per his expert advice when my first install seemed buggy. When I reinstalled I actually installed per his instructions on a completely clean partition with nothing else on it but the OS to see if that might help. It did not. Neither did updating the program and getting the few patches they had done so far.

For the record I while I am not a PC tech I do know my way around a computer, the OS, and I'm tech savvy enough that I usually end up fixing other people's messes. I could almost build my own machine at this point. There's not much about my machine that does intimidate me or that I can't fix, usually. I do my own upgrades, installs, and I can do almost anything on my computer or to it. About the only thing I won't do is delicate motherboard work and that's because my hands are not steady enough for these days for that. I've also been using Photoshop since V4, not CS4, V4. I am a power PC user, and I do know how Adobe stuff tends to work besides. So when I tell you I've tried "everything" to solve something, I mean it. I usually know what Adobe applications usually require, what the usual solutions are when you want to fix something. But the problems with CS6? I have to admit nothing I tried really worked. I never could get rid of the issues with it.

I am not the only one who was having the slow start up issue, nor am I the only one who has had issues with certain tools or plugs upon occasion. There is a whole thread actually devoted to the startup issue on the Adobe forum, and FYI almost a year into it there was still no real solution offered other than reinstall it again and again and see if it helps. It about drove a lot of people nuts trying to figure it out, why it affected certain systems and not others, even on a clean partition etc. The only thing that was noted was that it seemed to happen a lot on proprietary PC's vs generic PC's, IE people with Dell, HP and other branded PC's seemed to be having the problem more. But it was still happening randomly on non-branded PC's too so that wasn't much help apparently when trying to solve the problem.

There was one theory that made sense to me initially about certain video cards causing a glitch, but as it turned out changing out the video card to one that was suggested just didn't solve the problem for me or apparently a lot of other people though it did help a bit with the 3D thing. Even my friend at Adobe was perplexed and admitted as much. Every time I asked him if they had finally licked it he just said that they were working on it. Obviously they did do something. It seems to be a total non issue in CC.

I am running EXACTLY the same set up now as with my first time with CS6. It's on my regular partition with everything installed, all my regular programs and plugs, no reformat and this time and it WORKS, sans glitches and loads very fast even with plugs. Obviously if it is "just the same " as CS6 it would not be running like it is, swiftly and sans glitches, now would it? I still have CS6 on it's own partition and I am not going to change that in case I decide that I don't want to invest in CC but I have to admit the clean install CS6 is working a bit less capably than the not so clean install CC version and that just makes me shake my head. Whatever they fixed, they did a good job. I mean here I am with a down and dirty install that I didn't even try to make a clean slate for and it's working perfectly? Go figure...:P

But short of buying CS6 a brand new and entirely different machine, and even that might not have worked, I don't think there is much else we could have done to give it a "better" set up. I upgraded the RAM. I gave it an approved video card. I gave it a clean partition of it's own. I double checked every single plug for compatibility and possible updates. I didn't even run an anti-virus program or a firewall on that partition just in case, I just turned off the internet connection whenever I booted up to that partition. It's running on a newer machine that's faster to run than a groupie's underwear will drop upon sight of a rock idol. Still it loads snail slow and a couple of the tools freeze and the brush tips won't stay on the same setting now and again. It's not completely unusable it's just majorly annoying when I am in a hurry and I just want to open the darned program up, make a quick edit and be done with it. CS5 actually ran pretty fast and was stable on my computer and like I said so is CC apparently so I honestly can't understand why CS6 was such a bear by comparison.

If it worked 100% for you, hooray, but I was not alone in this situation, not by a long shot and generally speaking when it comes to my PC, my setup, and Adobe programs I know what I am doing so there you have it...

[wildman]

Okay guys, I'm going to say this again, more specifically.

etc etc.

1. CC version runs better than standalone version.
2. Both versions do not require a internet connection to run properly (correct me if I'm wrong).
3. Therefore both are essentially standalone programs that run off of local code on your machine.
4. Therefore Adobe, with the CC version, has solved the problem whatever it is.
5. Therefore if they have solved it for one version they have solved it for both versions - there is nothing necessarily different about the two programs as far as the basic underlying code is concerned.
6. CONCLUSION: Adobe either cannot or will not correct the defective code in the standalone version.

What, if anything, am I missing here?
With CC does Adobe really want to solve the problem with PS CS6?
What evidence, if any, is there that others are also finding the CC version more bug free than the CS6 version or perhaps your experience is not typical?

[Class A]

6. CONCLUSION: Adobe either cannot or will not correct the defective code in the standalone version.

Could well be a case of "cannot".

The same mysterious catastrophic performances on high-end machines happened a lot with Lightroom as well. On some machines it ran decently, on others it sucked. This was particularly bad around LR 3.0, not sure where they are at right now.

Having followed Adobe forums quite a bit in the past, I have to say the questions and comments by the developers participating are not confidence inspiring. AFAIC, Lightroom is not programmed / quality-controlled professionally. Sometimes they get away with their haphazard ways, sometimes not.

I always had the impression that the code quality of PS was quite a bit better than LRs and it probably is, but interesting to see that CS6 apparently also created some "mysteries".

[magkelly]

All I know is I didn't even give this baby it's own crib and CC is loading fast and running perfectly which is more than I can say of CS6. The way I see it they must have done SOMETHING... :P