WFT?!
http://www.creativebloq.com/adobe/desig ... -101413297

Doesn't surprise me in the least, Adobe are getting as greedy and as arrogant as Quark did before they lost market share to Adobe. Anyone seeing a pattern emerging here?

This is why I'm still on CS6 and will resist the move to renting software as long as possible.

I am on CS3, which seems quite happy running on Yosemite.

I'm looking at alternatives - Pixelmator is a good, but not fully mature, bitmap editor. I am very much liking Affinity Designer as an Illustrator replacement. The Affinity range promises a bitmap editor and a Quark/InDesign type apps to come. If you have a Mac, keep your eyes on these.

What's it lacking, in your opinion?

Depends what you want it for. Sketch is a really good vector graphics editor.

It's not that far away, CMYK is the biggest omission but for a lot of photographers that probably won't bother them. For designers, though, CMYK is more important, it's been on the list of additions to follow from the developers for a few years now, but still hasn't been added.

The interface is slick enough, but not to everyone's taste I'll grant you, and the only other weak point for me is the support for ColorSync profiles, both embedded into files you open and the limited range it supports in it's working environment.

Not sure how well it handles RAW files either.

But for a cheap and cheerful image editor for home users, it's great. Professional use? The jury's still out.

I must admit, I was against renting software to begin with, but with the cheap deals from Amazon, the Office 365 has been very positive so far. That that the prices on the Adobe site itself vary is a scandal.

At work we need Adobe CS once or twice a year. At 40€ a month, that is 80€ a year, less if we only need one product. For a company like us, that is a huge saving. It is also cheaper for people getting into the business, they can spread the equivalent of the purchase price over 3 years. That means a lot less start-up capital. For those that have bought previous version, it is a change, plus, if you stop paying, you lose access.

Without CMYK support it's useless as an art worker's tool. I've just spent the last two weeks working on packaging designs with intricate bitmap art backgrounds that had to be exactly colour matched to the company's colour palate which is in CMYK and Pantone.

Are there any alternatives to Photoshop that can handle CMYK?

CMYK and adjustment layers.

Affinity Designer does do CMYK, and it has some bitmap editing capabilities too.

iDraw is nice (and it has an iPad companion app), but, again, no CMYK. I don't think Sketch has CMKY either.

bigDave must be the first person I know who has said that CC is value for money. cardinals the freelancers Everyone seems to resent the monthly fees, car tai my the freelances I know do. One company I work for has definitely said that it's "not value for Monday" and are seeking out other software for their art working and design.

Well, I'm downloading the trial to have a play.
Will report later.

Paul, for me, the Suite costs around 3500€, I don't have that sort of money, but I could afford 30 - 40€ a month. That means I either have to save up for 3 - 4 years, before I can buy it, or I rent it and start now.

Likewise, for short term projects etc. the model is attractive.

For people who upgrade / need to upgrade to each new version, the model is attractive.

If you buy a new version ever 5 to 10 years, then it doesn't make sense.

It is also like leasing for businesses, it is a pre-tax write off.

So, had a brief play.
Opened up RAW files from both a Canon 60D and a Nikon D90. It's lacking a RAW adjustment tool that you'd expect to find with the Adobe stuff though.
That said, I've been poking and prodding at a slightly underexposed RAW file and it's pulled out detail and adjusted contrast quite nicely without the image falling apart, so it's clearly using the RAW information as it should.
Layer masks appear to be working fine.

But yup, no CMYK anywhere, and the adjustment layer thing.
Could I work with it as a photographer? Yes.
Could I use it for package or product design? Probably not. Or at least not without a step between my file and the hand off.

I know CMYK is still a big deal to print designers, but I have to say for much of the previous decade I was still working in and around print I didn't bother with CMYK for placed images. Boy, was that a major ball ache I didn't have to worry about any more.

I built a print workflow with colour profiles, and let all the conversion happen at output to PDF stage. I didn't have any issues coming back from printers - probably because they supplied the output profile!

That said, the last printer I worked for was a proper drum scanner technician. He could almost give you a CMYK colour split of any colour, just by looking at it. It took him a long time to break the four colour habit, but embraced the freedom once he did.

Pixelmator needs to support colour profiles, which I'm sure they are aware of. I know the whole CMYK thing has been a cry on the user forums since the year Dot. The best they've come up with is letting you use a CMYK colour palette, which only really goes part of the way. For anyone working on screen presentation, though, CMYK is not required.

I'm loving the new Pixelmator iPad app, too!

True that if you don't already own a previous edition, there's a big outlay to buy the suite, as it used to be.

But the vast majority of users would have an earlier edition of the suite and then upgrade that - when we upgraded to CS 6 at my previous job, the upgrade price was around the £400 mark. Which equates to around £7.50 a week, assuming you upgrade around once a year - the rate which Adobe were tending to update the suite before CC was introduced.

So, a similar price to the monthly subscription for CC, give or take (and depending on which browser you use apparently!). What's changed, though, is Adobe have taken away that choice of owning your software or just renting it. That's my main gripe, they could have kept the boxed editions for people who aren't willing to subscribe - freelancers or casual users don't always have a regular income, for example.

It's easy to pick at Pixelmator's shortcomings, and I'm guilty of that as much as any, but let's not forget it's only around £14 to buy. Unbelievably good value for what you get!

I use Pixelmator here, but then I really only use it at quite a trivial level for the web work I do (it's mostly cropping, resizing and minor stuff like that). The idea of forking out £3500 for something like Creative Suite just strikes me as bonkers given a lot of the alternatives.

I am being way too picky about Pixelmator. I rarely need CMYK, with most of my work being web work. The one thing I really miss are adjustment layers, which means that things like contrast, levels, etc. are not baked into to the image.

The biggest problem I have is the Adobe habit. I have to wean myself off the Photoshop/Illustrator habit.

Heather - for the benefit of those of us who haven't got the PDF CMYK trick down, could you let us know how this is done? Thanks.