![]() ![]() Some years, Adobe would offer an ‘upgrade’ for $79 (for a $99 product), but the reality was anyone could get Elements for $79, if you waited or looked hard enough. Adobe has released a new version of Elements every fall for the past decade or so you could set your watch to it. (See above: ‘paying constantly for software.’) Photoshop Elements by exampleĪnother Adobe product, Photoshop Elements, is a perfect example of the upgrade conundrum, at least from an old-world point of view.įor a while, I published a magazine called Photoshop Elements Techniques, and I was able to see up close the dynamics of a single product in the market. As a small company, we had to do our best to take care of older customers, but many of them still wouldn’t upgrade when we released a new version. The trade-off was that, if we kept the code required to support those systems, the product would suffer because it couldn’t take advantages of newer technology found in a more modern operating system. I worked for a software company for a few years, and one of the big challenges we faced with upgrades was how much of the legacy user base, running Windows XP and an ancient graphics card, we could afford to lose with a major update. I was a member of the entrenched ‘Word 5.1’ user base for years.Īnother factor in play is the computers many people don’t upgrade their machines regularly, and those people tend to get left behind with updates that require more memory, faster processors, new graphics cards and so forth. 3 In the ’90s, Microsoft Word was one of the biggest offenders of this. which meant that many users did not upgrade to every release-or, frankly, stole it-and some products had such radical changes from version to version that people would stick with an older one for comfort reasons. ![]() Of course, software was generally more expensive back then, 2 At one point, Photoshop was priced at $1,000, and upgrades were $500. but major releases were usually 18 months to two years (or more) apart, which helped spread out the cost of the software over a longer period of time. Once the Web took off, it made the process of updating software via a download much easier. There might be a bug-fix update here and there, 1 Pre-Internet, this was usually for a $25-or-so disk mailed to you, which understandably infuriated users. This is a legacy of the first generation of computers and software (from the 1980s to about 1999), where one bought a box of software, installed it on their computer, and that was that. I buy software, and it should work (to some people, forever), and.The biggest, of course, is that many users don’t want to be paying constantly for software. With all that said-and I agree completely with Jeff’s assessment-I understand that there are other forces at work out there that feed this anger. Paying for software and keeping older hardware It is made better by the fact that Lightroom really is the best product for most photographers in the market, but if you don’t like Lightroom/Photoshop, or are upset about Adobe’s policies, there are many alternatives in the market for you to use. Jeff is spot-on in his analysis: if you are someone who is serious about your photography, and you want to remain current with the latest in features and performance, Adobe’s $120 per year for Lightroom (both versions) and Photoshop is a good deal. the costs of having an Adobe software subscription (in either Lightroom incarnation). My friend Jeff Carlson is doing a good job of talking about this issue, and today has an interesting piece called Math is Hard, or, A Quick Look at Lightroom Pricing. In it, Jeff talks about the cost of purchasing and upgrading a product like PhaseOne’s Capture One Pro vs. As I noted previously, I totally get the idea that people are getting weary of ‘subscribing’ for software, even if that’s really what we have all been doing for years. I have been fascinated with the furor that has whipped up many photographers about the release of Adobe Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic. ![]()
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