Originally posted by Ontarian50 I get it, there are people who hate Adobe's subscription model, as they don't use it as much as their Netflix subscription, but it costs the same. But for those of us who do use the programs several times a week for a variety of purposes, the subscription method is a lot less painful than shelling out $1,000 a copy and watching it slowly go out of date. And again, comparing the number of $150 or so gadget purchases we hobby photographers buy in a year and get much less utility from to a subscription to top-grade software is painful ($300 artisenal neck straps, anyone?).
I do chat with a few photographers at times who are limping along with their old versions of PS or Elements, yet own top-grade newer cameras, and they gripe about not being able to open certain files, etc. etc. They seem determined to never buy into the subscription plan out of spite to Adobe. Yet they have that great big variable ND filter they bought a year and a half ago, but haven't got around to using it yet ....
The subscription model is much more easily justified for folks who use the tools several times weekly, week in, week out. For them, I can see how a subscription makes sense. Some weeks, I'm processing a few photos every day, while other weeks I won't process a single one. Occasionally - but at least a couple of times a year - I may go several weeks without processing any. So you can see how a GBP £360 subscription (three years @ £120 per year) makes less sense for me than the £100 (and five pence
) I previously paid for Lightroom 6 stand-alone. I may get regular updates and features with the subscription, but I can live with software that's three years out of date so long as it does what I originally paid for.
The thing is, with Darktable, RawTherapee and GIMP, I don't ever have to use out of date software, because they're frequently updated with new features. Are Lightroom and Photoshop more polished? Certainly... although the gap is narrowing much faster of late. But, as a proficient Lightroom user, I can confidently say there's nothing I need in raw conversion and editing terms that the open source tools can't handle admirably... and the output, whatever anyone may think or say, is of equal quality. I don't get any reduction in quality of results by using open source software. The workflow is sometimes a bit clunkier, sure, but it's constantly getting better and better... and you quickly get used to it.
I'm not trying to convince you or anyone else that Adobe's subscriptions aren't good value. That's entirely subjective. Actually, for those who use the tools frequently enough, I think they can be decent value for money. But £360, whilst not a
lot of money to me, is nonetheless significant. I don't splash out $300 on neck straps, I can tell you that right now. My last photography purchase - other than a set of batteries for a pocket film camera - was the Pentax HD FA35 f/2, back in December 2019. It cost me less than three years subscription to Adobe's base plan, and I can process all the photos I take with it in Darktable or RawTherapee... for as long as I want, as frequently or infrequently as I choose, at no extra cost.
It's just a different choice, different priorities