[steve_k]

I received a free copy of Corel Creative Suite when I purchased my K-3 II from Adorama. I am new to digital photogragpy and have never used the Adobe product so I do not know how they compare. But I can tell you I knew absolutely nothing 4 weeks ago and have already removed a fence from one of the photos I took using Corel Draw. I started off using the AfterShot program which I feel is pretty easy to use for editing my raw photos and converting them to jpeg's. Here is the link to the full Corel product.

Photo Editor - PaintShop Pro X9 Ultimate - Software by Corel

I also am not a huge fan of the subscription model for software but there are some advantages to it. And believe it or not it is probably cheaper for you in the long run and beneficial for Adobe as it gives them a steady cash flow.

You were complaining about the monthly cost of $9.99. I believe the cost of the last non-subscription based PhotoShop Suite was between somewhere $400 and $600. So it would take 4 years on the subscription plan to pay for the suite. The typical upgrade cycle on software is between 2 and 4 years. So if you do the math you are probably better off with the subscription plan.

[Sagala]

That what you get when companies think there are no alternatives.

You might want to look at Photoline (PhotoLine: Image Processing & Design Software) which is small, very fast and even has some advantages over Adobe PS, while at the same time able to run pretty much any third party plugin for PS. Costs 59 EUR once.
The unregistered version runs an unlimited time I think. Extremely powerful once you learned it. I do not expect standard users without specialty requirements ever to miss anything in there versus PS.
And it really doesnt flood your harddrive with gigabytes of crap.

PhotoLine plus a raw converter is just perfect.

[normhead]

One of my Adobe stories. I bought a version of and Adobe editor capable of editing your web pages regardless of how they were created. 3 years later I bought a new computer. Collaborate or something like that. It wouldn't install. Adobe had some kind of thing going where you had to phone them with your license number and they'd install it. I was told they couldn't unlock my product because it was only supported for two years.

Were I to need it. I would steal Adobe software without hesitation. Especially those I've already paid for that they blocked access to. And because of the intent of the Bill Gates quote above, I won't use their software, I think so poorly of it I won't even steal it and use it.

I can document about $500 of my money that Adobe got by being simply greedy and unreasonable in the way they treat their customers.

I wouldn't give them a dime.

[pakinjapan]

Same boat. I miss when MacroMedia was still around.
Most client use adobe, I have to use what the market uses or face the capability issues when I receive or handover working files from / back to client.

As on my work, I have problem doing responsive web "design" on Windows. I don't think Adobe have a workable solution as of today. I used to use EdgeReflow, a very good responsive "design" tool. It only needs a library (like in In design) or master object (like in Muse) but they kill the project in favor of Muse. I try Muse and its rendering engine always brake my design! It add padding to where I have no padding, it convert my text to image etc... That force me to go back to Photoshop which is an image editing tool!
I just want a responsive web design tool so that I can export my artwork to html and communicate with the manager, the front-end people, but I think Adobe is confusing between Responsive Web design and Web front end developing. Muse seems to be made for mixing workflow between the two and end up doesn't do either job well. Whoever came up with the idea (of mixing workflow btw design and fornt-end developing) is for sure neither a designer nor a developer. Most likely coming from business section of the company.

And the InDesign which Adobe seem to always find a new way to make the software slower and slower every new update. Look at this page, it is a good example how adobe fixs their problem. I has been keeping an eye on that page for months, and I haven't yet find an answer to fix Indesign slow down problem yet. so I still with the 2015 version for now.

-- I do not like their new subscription model for their software. It assumes you can pay for it out of a steady income stream,...

I think you can do Monthly subscription.

[mee]

Unfortunately, that still doesn't get me a copy of the software to use in perpetuity.

This is true. It is also why I use Affinity Photo now for editing duties.

[Terry C]

I have used Photoshop for years, but am now retired. I have CS3 on my desktop and will stick with that. Not paying any monthly thing.

[gifthorse]

I too am done with Adobe. I was given a subscription to Elements and Lightroom for Christmas. On installation I was required to provide a credit card for "automatic renewal". The program was already paid for but in order to activated the program I was required to provide the credit card. I do not want automatic renewal. And being forced into it really and truly pisses me off. That stunt has made me determined to stop using Adobe.

[lithedreamer]

The Adobe lightroom database, where all the work you did with the files are stored, are their way of blackmailing you / make you addicted. Its an encrypted proprietary file, that no other software can make use of.

Now this is FUD. The Lightroom catalog is just an SQLite database. Someone would have to reverse-engineer the settings. It'd be a lot of work, as cross-compatibility often is, but it's not encrypted and it's not exactly proprietary either.

If you want to move to a different program, just have Lightroom write your edits to XMP sidecar files if they're a proprietary raw. If they're DNG, they seem to store much of the changes in the DNG itself.

[Digitalis]

In the studios where I work Adobe subscriptions are the norm, but there is more variation in RAW processing software, many of my colleagues use alternatives to lightroom: such as Raw Therapee, Phocus ,Capture one. etc But for my personal work, I use older versions of CS3 and CS5, they both can do 99% of what I need to get done. I also bought a standalone version of Lightroom5, I intend on keeping it.

[PDL]

The software on subscription from adobe doesn't stop working when the subscription ends. The updates stop. You can't download it again etc. all cloud features end.

So it isn't quite as bad as you might think.

Subscription software models are here because they work. Many people are more likely to buy in and the steady income stream keeps the product development cycle more fluid due to funding.

At least for Lightroom this is false. When you atop the subscription, the Develop and Map modules will not function. Having Lightroom without the Develop module is making it worthless.

[Digitalis]

When you stop the subscription, the Develop and Map modules will not function.

wow...Adobe,really?

Having Lightroom without the Develop module is

..like having a spoon when you need a knife.

[Rondec]

I do hate the Adobe model. It definitely is worth it for folks who would buy every iteration of Adobe's software, but I don't. I can typically skip a Lightroom generation and end up using several generations old version of Elements because I am a hobby photographer who doesn't need cutting edge tools.

That said, Adobe went to the subscription model because too many folks were like me and skipping generations. If they released the newest version of Photoshop and no one bought it because they had mostly tweaked existing tools and people were getting by with their older versions, then their revenue would go down. Now, they have no pressure to release features that will blow folks away and rather dribble out little improvements here and there as they want. And I guess few complain because they are only paying 10 dollars a month.

Oh well...

[beholder3]

Adobe is just cashing in on the vast numbers of undereducated people, who are unable to make economic decisions.
Good for them, bad for the ...

There never was a real need to update LR more than every 3 years and you could buy the unlimited product for 80 EUR as upgrade.
That is 2.22 EUR/month. Most people never used let alone bought PS = 0 EUR/month. Or 0.07 EUR/day.

Now the ... are happy to pay a 500% price increase for a fully crippled product which will cease functioning if you don't feed it with your money.

Online and cloud make things easy to rent out software by the hour or day all without transaction costs.

If Adobe would not lie about their intentions, they would offer half day daily passes for their software (current fair value: 0,03 to 0,04 EUR). And nobody would complain if they raised the prices just like other products - that is inflation of +2%/year. So they could jump to 0,05 EUR/half day in about 40 years.
How many half day Adobe passes would you need per year? 20? 15?

But in reality it is: Adobe Creative Cloud price increase coming in the UK | Photo Rumors

[Sandy Hancock]

These companies are not charities. If you don't want to pay for them, don't. Sort it out.

P.S. Software has never been cheaper.

[emalvick]

We're all consumers and can decide what is worth it to us or not.

Adobe has basically cornered the market for years. The result is that everything that comes out, plugins, tutorials, books, etc are made to work in Photoshop or LR (or both). Of course, the bad is that you have to pay for it. Of course, at least as of now, most everything that works with the CC model will work with CS software. Tutorials and books might leave you short on features that have been introduced, but it doesn't mean you can't get to a desired result anyway. It's the price of not upgrading or subscribing.

The same goes for choosing software like Affinity, Paintshop Pro, GIMP, etc. You can get to the same results with this software as you can with Photoshop. You just have to figure out how tutorials and features work to get there. Again, it's the price of spending less.

Thankfully, most of us that choose that route (I purchased Affinity recently) can find our own tutorials and help thanks to Google. Sure there isn't as much out there, but with a little more effort, we can even figure out ways to equate Photoshop features to our software. It's just a bit of effort and diligence. The price of spending $50 once vs. $100+ per year.

Now, for those that really want Photoshop, I know that at some point they had CS2 available for free completely. Of course this is again in line with the Adobe model of making you an addict of the software so you'll pay for the features CS2 is missing. However, with regard to the original post, I think a lot of stuff related to astrophotography can still be done. Most of the concepts just need lots of layers and the ability to adjust levels, curves, etc. For that matter, I think it would be relatively easy to transfer concepts to Affinity, PSP, or GIMP. Google can be quite the friend.

Finally, for those that subscribe and want out. The DAM aspect of LR can be solved by making sure you right all metadata to your files (or XMP). You'll need to make sure you find a catalog software that will support XMP (which really shouldn't be a problem). The develop stuff, well that is an issue with all RAW processors. They are never really compatible with others, although ON1 has suggested a possibility they may attempt to read LR develop settings; I honestly wouldn't expect much. If you really don't want to lose edits, you'll need to export all the photos to new DNG's or Tiff files or JPG if you can live with the compression.

I was using LR for years. It was the only Adobe Product I regularly paid for, all the way to version 6. But, LR6 was somewhat of a step backward, and I don't use Photoshop enough to justify a subscription or even buying CS6 when it was available. I bit the bullet and gave up on LR6 and went to DxO. Sure I lost develop settings, but I rarely spend more than a few minutes processing a raw photo anyway. On the few photos I spent a lot of time on, I exported to TIFF or JPG. Since I shoot in DNG, I also made sure to write all my metadata to the files as well as embedded processed photos. I've not regrets, and I even find that DxO's automatic processing is among the best I've used. I'm sure there are better options (CO seems to be held in high regard), but everyone just needs to figure out what works for them financially and personally.