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01-11-2016, 09:27 PM   #31
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Wife uses LR3 i think. It's just fine, works fine.

I have the CC. Yes, compared to the purchase price of LR3 spread out over years, it's MUCH more expensive. However, it will always be up to date, and since i like messing with things, having PS to learn at my leisure is nice.

01-12-2016, 11:16 AM   #32
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I always found it a bit odd that at the comical profit margins adobe has, someone else hasn't made essentially the same software for half the price.

Even at half price you would still make so much on each copy that you could afford to hire all the best developers and programmers and still turn a healthy profit.

With supply and demand the adobe monopoly technically shouldn't exist, even Microsoft can't charge that ridiculously much for an operating system that is much more critical to many more people and takes far more development and constant work to boot.

That said I just downloaded a free copy of paint.net for my editing. Subscriptions are for magazines and services, so until they start editing the pictures for you I will take my software in a hard copy that expires when I tell it to, thank you very much.

Also I don't think i have ever taken a picture so important (or so badly shot) that it needs photoshops level of tools. There's a lot of work that's easier to do correctly in pre, than fix in post.
Of course heavily edited images seem to be what buyers of photos expect these days so what do I know.
01-12-2016, 11:18 AM   #33
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Yes there is a 30 day trial

QuoteOriginally posted by redrockcoulee Quote
Does Lightroom still have the 30 day trial program and if so download it and if it appears to do what you need register the copy with Adobe who will be more than happy to take your money.
I don't think anyone answered this - yes, there is a 30 day trial. You can even get it for older versions of your computer operating system.
01-12-2016, 11:19 AM   #34
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QuoteOriginally posted by BigMackCam Quote
I don't think that part is correct? I have the perpetual version of LR6 and I also have LR Mobile... works just fine for me
Hmm, Adobe's FAQ says:

QuoteQuote:
The Lightroom for mobile apps give you unlimited free access to all capture, organization, editing, and sharing tools available in the mobile app in the trial version. To unlock anywhere access and syncing of your Lightroom photos across devices; access Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC to take your photography further; share your photos in beautiful web galleries; or automatically access all your Lightroom photos in Photoshop Mix, Fix, Voice, Slate, and Premiere Clip; you must sign up for a trial or subscribe to the Creative Cloud Photography plan.
Dunno how you got full access, but enjoy!

01-12-2016, 11:29 AM   #35
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Interesting about mobile app. Seems that the only thing I can't do is sync pictures on different devices. I'm new to the software and to the app, but this doesn't bother me at all. Also, nowhere in the app does it imply that what I have is a "trial" version.
01-12-2016, 11:42 AM   #36
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QuoteOriginally posted by PPPPPP42 Quote
I always found it a bit odd that at the comical profit margins adobe has, someone else hasn't made essentially the same software for half the price.
Somebody did. In fact, Apple Aperture was released before Lightroom...a year before the Lightroom beta. But Lightroom is cross platform, and Adobe already had the Photoshop users locked in.

Way back in the stone age of OS X 10.0 there was a chance to break the Adobe monopoly. At least as far as Mac OS went. Photoshop 6 did not run natively on OS X. It only ran in Classic, and things like hardware acceleration didn't work in Classic. A company called Caffinesoft had a Cocoa native image editor called TIFFany 3. TIFFany had been the primary editor on NeXTSTEP/OpenStep, so it was easy to port to OS X. Most Photoshop users just continued to boot into MacOS 9 until the Carbonized Photoshop 7 came out a year later.

Photoshop continues as the de facto standard for the same reason the Micro$oft Office is the de facto standard. Adobe and Micro$oft were even able to get Apple to completely change the path to OS X because they refused to port their applications to Rhapsody. Rhapsody became OS X Server 1.0.
01-12-2016, 11:57 AM   #37
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QuoteOriginally posted by doroth2 Quote
Interesting about mobile app. Seems that the only thing I can't do is sync pictures on different devices. I'm new to the software and to the app, but this doesn't bother me at all. Also, nowhere in the app does it imply that what I have is a "trial" version.
Same here!

01-13-2016, 07:35 AM   #38
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Pardon my Adobe iggarince, but what is the mobile app for? Doing actual image processing with a 4" screen? Or just looking at your uploaded images?

---------- Post added 01-13-16 at 08:56 AM ----------

QuoteOriginally posted by PPPPPP42 Quote
I always found it a bit odd that at the comical profit margins adobe has, someone else hasn't made essentially the same software for half the price.

Even at half price you would still make so much on each copy that you could afford to hire all the best developers and programmers and still turn a healthy profit.

With supply and demand the adobe monopoly technically shouldn't exist, even Microsoft can't charge that ridiculously much for an operating system that is much more critical to many more people and takes far more development and constant work to boot.

That said I just downloaded a free copy of paint.net for my editing. Subscriptions are for magazines and services, so until they start editing the pictures for you I will take my software in a hard copy that expires when I tell it to, thank you very much.

Also I don't think i have ever taken a picture so important (or so badly shot) that it needs photoshops level of tools. There's a lot of work that's easier to do correctly in pre, than fix in post.
Of course heavily edited images seem to be what buyers of photos expect these days so what do I know.
I think the answers to the questions you ask are several. I've certainly observed and pondered the same over the years. Besides being classicly horribly expensive, the Adobe layouts were never intuitive to me. I failed to get the Adobe gene, I guess. I use no Adobe products, not even the Reader. Oh, yes, Flash because it's the only game for internet video.

I think the first consideration is being first in the game. Although Photo-Paint, now by Corel, was first of the type of program PS is, they failed to get a toe hold in the market. Probably just by dint of presence in the SW world. So, being first, or almost first, starts bring people in. That leads to:

Two. The use of PS (or whatever Big Name Dominates) program spreads. People in the pro or graphics business can justify the mega-$$$ prices for the SW. What really rankles me at this point is that upgrades that use probably 95% of the old code, Adobe charged big fees for that 5%. This leads to:

Three. Since the pro's are using it, I should too. Meaning average people. Which also means increasing pirated software. Which also means that a lot of people start making alternative programs to do the PS job, or maybe not the whole enchilada. More designed for average users. There's a list of both free and proprietary raster image programs here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_raster_graphics_editors

The obvious alternative to PS is The GIMP. You can now set it up as a single screen work space, like PS. There are many much lower priced programs to compete with LR and/or PS like Paint Shop Pro, ACDsee, and others.

There is the, I think, amazing www.digiKam.org . Think Lightroom plus many PS functions short of working with masks and layers. Open source, Linux based, a not quite perfect port to Windows, which is what I use, and a lesser perfect port to Mac. It has plug-ins that I understand you pay extra for to accomplish the same in PS. No Adobe gene required!

A similar "first in" phenomena happened when Steve Jobs got Macs into many schools. Pretty soon the teachers were buying them for their own use, now they were familiar with them. The students grew up with them, so when they got their own computer, they chose Apple (if they could afford them!)

So, there' my many cents worth of answer to your question!
01-13-2016, 08:21 AM   #39
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QuoteOriginally posted by paulvzo Quote
I think the first consideration is being first in the game. Although Photo-Paint, now by Corel, was first of the type of program PS is, they failed to get a toe hold in the market. Probably just by dint of presence in the SW world. So, being first, or almost first, starts bring people in.
Photo-Paint may have been first on Windows by a few months, the first Windows Photoshop was 2.5 in Nov. 1992, but Photoshop 1.0 was released on the Mac in 1990. In the early 90s graphics meant Macs. Aldus Pagemaker in 1985, Adobe Illustrator in 1986, QuarkXPress in 1987, Aldus Freehand in 1988, then Adobe Photoshop in 1990.

There was a DOS version of Pagemaker, but Quark, Freehand, Illustrator and Photoshop weren't ported to Windows until 91-92. And no self respecting graphic designer would use them on Windows for years...
01-13-2016, 10:29 AM   #40
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QuoteQuote:
Pardon my Adobe iggarince, but what is the mobile app for? Doing actual image processing with a 4" screen? Or just looking at your uploaded images?
Lr Mobile is designed to do some basic editing on photos you send to your mobile device first and foremost. You select a collection, and synch it, and Lr makes smart previews which it sends via the cloud to the device. There you can rate, do some editing, and synch back. The app also allows you to reference the camera roll, and synch that back to your computer, and I think maybe some sharing stuff. It's primarily a computer to mobile workflow; importing from camera to mobile to computer is not so hot and not what it's designed for, at least at this point. You can just show off your pictures on the mobile device as well. And 4" not so much, tablets. Although works on both.

And maybe it's the lawyer in me, but "monopoly"? I worked in schools and other institutions where we considered Adobe licenses, and yeah, there were expensive. But it's top of the line software. Adobe was excellent in their terms for academic licensing; they almost gave it away. Gov't licenses were decent too. And so was the support. They basically outcompeted everyone else we looked at, time and again. Sure, some of that was the compatibility issue, with both PDFs and Ps files, but others had their shot and failed. I don't own Adobe stock or have a horse in their race (and funny, I don't have Flash installed; hate it, use HTML5). But I point it out to say there's a reason we're here, and competition (since I assume it isn't altruism) has forced the price of Ps down; I paid far more over time than the Photographer subscription costs now (and certainly in comparison to photo gear here at Pentaxforum).

And so DO try the alternatives. Since we're talking mobile, check out Mylio. Far far better at synching than Lr Mobile, even for stuff in Lr, since it can also make Lr/Ps compatible adjustments and metadata edits. I think sometimes, as with the camera gear here, people think they need far more kit than reality dictates. The whole "prosumer" thing. From lenses to bags to filters to, yeah, software. When something simpler and less expensive would do, especially if your boss isn't paying for it.
01-13-2016, 10:58 AM   #41
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QuoteOriginally posted by Oakland Rob Quote
And maybe it's the lawyer in me, but "monopoly"? I worked in schools and other institutions where we considered Adobe licenses, and yeah, there were expensive. But it's top of the line software. Adobe was excellent in their terms for academic licensing; they almost gave it away.
IIRC you continued to get the academic pricing when you upgraded even after you weren't a student anymore. Though, that might have been if you weren't using it commercially.
01-13-2016, 02:25 PM   #42
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QuoteOriginally posted by boriscleto Quote
IIRC you continued to get the academic pricing when you upgraded even after you weren't a student anymore. Though, that might have been if you weren't using it commercially.
They had a couple of different academic licenses. Some were institutional; if your school had a license you could get one really cheap, and then just bought it again and again instead of upgrading. Others simply kicked you into the regular upgrade pricing path. They were pretty liberal about student status too; you could take one class at a community college and you qualified. If it was a photo class, you might be required to use it, if it wasn't a film class.

Also, you couldn't transfer the academic licenses, but you can transfer a regular license.

It was and continues to be a great strategy for them, and we loved it at the schools. Apple, for instance, was far less generous.
01-13-2016, 06:58 PM   #43
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QuoteOriginally posted by concealer404 Quote
Wife uses LR3 i think. It's just fine, works fine.

I have the CC. Yes, compared to the purchase price of LR3 spread out over years, it's MUCH more expensive. However, it will always be up to date, and since i like messing with things, having PS to learn at my leisure is nice.
I'm still using LR4! All my lenses are profiled. And it just works. Though I use it in conjunction with the Google Nik Suite and Photoshop Elements when needed.

I would recommend just buying LR standalone and spend your time learning it.
Maybe buy Photoshop elements (we're up to version 14 now) on the side too and learn that. Once you outgrow those, then consider the CC package. Otherwise I find it a waste of money..

Why buy a Formula 1 car starting out when you should learn how to drive a Miata on a track? Get the fundamentals down first.. go with LR standalone and PSE standalone.
01-14-2016, 06:56 AM   #44
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@Oakland Rob: Interesting, and another example of getting My Software Company's products, not just in front of people, but people who are just starting out. It's that familiarity and inertia thing.

If, just to pick a logical alternative, or, say, a school in a Third World Country, used The GIMP to teach graphics, that's what those students would probably continue to use all their lives. I've read that in Europe, the gorilla is Corel Draw, not PS. Draw, the vector based program, includes Photo-Paint, the approximate PS alternative. Don't know if true, about the sales. But at least before Adobe went subscription, Draw was approximately like getting Illustrator and PS for maybe $600.

That's all to the best of my knowledge which may be off quite a bit.
01-14-2016, 10:16 AM   #45
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QuoteOriginally posted by paulvzo Quote
@Oakland Rob: Interesting, and another example of getting My Software Company's products, not just in front of people, but people who are just starting out. It's that familiarity and inertia thing.

If, just to pick a logical alternative, or, say, a school in a Third World Country, used The GIMP to teach graphics, that's what those students would probably continue to use all their lives. I've read that in Europe, the gorilla is Corel Draw, not PS. Draw, the vector based program, includes Photo-Paint, the approximate PS alternative. Don't know if true, about the sales. But at least before Adobe went subscription, Draw was approximately like getting Illustrator and PS for maybe $600.

That's all to the best of my knowledge which may be off quite a bit.
Not quite sure what you mean, but yeah, Corel is an alternative (not Draw, which is completely different, but Photo Paint). It was closer to Photoshop in the past, but I don't think so now, but certainly an alternative. And remember that Adobe has a much larger range of products and they bundle them together nicely. It's kinda like what happened with Microsoft Word and WordPerfect; Corel just struggles to outcompete. I didn't use Corel site licensing or support, but I have dealt with their individual license support, and it's not great. And we were using Macs, and Corel's Mac support definitely lags way behind Adobe's support. Use on PCs is better.

I'm all for open source stuff. Love it. But you have to factor in whether your people can learn it easily, and whether having learned it, those skills are useful elsewhere. The resources for learning Ps far outstrip what's available for GIMP. And running and servicing GIMP can be a pain for your IT department, who often would rather leave that chore to say Adobe. I'm not saying competition and capitalism always produces the best outcomes, but the market has kinda spoken.

Subscriptions (vs perpetual licenses; you never own software unless you write it) have proven quite popular for Adobe, and probably others. For long term users who upgrade regularly, and for those used to site licensing, it's not really much different than what we did in the past, and cheaper. For those who want perpetual licenses, you can still buy and use them, at least as long as they are supported by either the developer or the system software. You see the problem for developers: you buy a copy and you're done, but the developer is required to continue to provide support for a time, although that obligation is undefined (hence the apoplexy Aperture users are feeling now that their "perpetual" license is fading into oblivion). You see that even more so with apps for mobile devices; they generate most of the money very early on; then the income stream drops, and they lose the incentive to keep working on the product, and it goes poof.
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