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This is an interactive Bulletin Board on the topics of Sign making, design, fabrication, History, old Books and of coarse Letterheads, Keepers of the craft. The Hand Lettering Forum features links to resources, sign art history, techniques, and artists profiles. Learn more about Letterheads at https://theletterheads.com. Below you'll see Mchat has been added as a live communication portal for trial, and the Main forum Links are listed below.

Creative Cloud

Hand Lettering topics: Sign Making, Design, Fabrication, Letterheads, Sign Books.

Moderators: Ron Percell, Mike Jackson, Danny Baronian

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Mike Jackson
Site Admin
Posts: 1705
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 11:02 pm
Location: Jackson Hole, WY
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Creative Cloud

Post by Mike Jackson »

I paid my $19.95 Thursday night and bought the entire Adobe CC Suite for a year at $19.95 per month. I had to reinstall my Adobe Application Manager, but after that, it went well. I was ready to sign up, just to get Lightroom 5, but then found everything is ready.

I ended up having to pay $99 for an OnOne Suite upgrade and $30 for my PK Sharpener program. Auto FX is just about to release a 64 bit version of their Deam Suite plugins, so I'll have to pay for that upgrage when it releases.

Otherwise, the rest of my filters and plug-ins worked in the new version of Photoshop.

Photoshop and Lightroom automatically ported over my actions, swatches, and presets, making that fairly painless.

The Creative Cloud might not be for everyone, but if you have three or four of their programs, I'd say you will come out ahead at the end of the year. Lightroom would have cost me $79 to upgrade, so I am four months into my yearly costs already for $19.95.

Cheers,
Mike Jackson
Mike Jackson / co-administrator
Golden Era Studios
Vintage Ornamental Clip art
Jackson Hole, WY

Photography site:
Teton Images
Jackson Hole photography blog:
Best of the Tetons
erik winkler
Posts: 1097
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2008 5:48 pm
Location: Amsterdam Netherlands
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Re: Creative Cloud

Post by erik winkler »

Good to hear your experience, thank you.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still feel strange renting a product.
I have the same feeling with company cars: I do buy a car and do not want to lease it.
But if the price is better at the end... such a strange concept to get used to.
Please keep us updated with your experiences.
Realizing we are in the 2nd renaissance of the arts.
Learn, copy and trying to improve...
Still in the learning phase ;-)
Amsterdam Netherlands
www.ferrywinkler.nl
www.schitterend.eu
www.facebook.com/Schitterend.eu
Mike Jackson
Site Admin
Posts: 1705
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 11:02 pm
Location: Jackson Hole, WY
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Re: Creative Cloud

Post by Mike Jackson »

Erik,
You've never really OWNED software. You buy a license to use it. Once you understand that concept, there isn't much of a difference except the delivery method.

With this model, I get the ENTIRE suite for an up front grand total of $19.99. With the old model, I'd be putting close to $800 on my credit card to update my CS6 Design Premium Suite plus another $79 to update Lightroom 4 to Lightroom 5. I also get Premier Pro and Muse for "free", since I never paid for them before in the Design Premium Suite.

You can always save files in TIF format instead of PSD, so you can always open them in other programs in the future, Doing that, you are not locked out of your files if you opt to end the subscription as some people are worried about.

With all of that said, I am not anxious to someday see my monthly credit card bill filled with monthly subscriptions to keep my software running.

If the subscription model is not right for some people, they will get to keep using their CS6 version for as long as their operating system still supports it.
Mike Jackson / co-administrator
Golden Era Studios
Vintage Ornamental Clip art
Jackson Hole, WY

Photography site:
Teton Images
Jackson Hole photography blog:
Best of the Tetons
Doug Bernhardt
Posts: 1077
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:29 am
Location: Ottawa Canada
Contact:

Re: Creative Cloud

Post by Doug Bernhardt »

Can easily see the attraction for you as you use something like Photo Shop on-goingly but unless I've been traveling it might sit "all but un-used" for months at a time. Then I'll settle down to work with it for a month or more of evenings. It would also be daunting for me to be at the "bleeding edge" every time there was an update. When I got CS4 and it was brand spanking new, there was more than one update for things that crashed un-announced. I find the creative process daunting enuf without having new tools thrown in every so many weeks...sheesh...try and find a good brush these days! ;=/
Mike Jackson
Site Admin
Posts: 1705
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 11:02 pm
Location: Jackson Hole, WY
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Re: Creative Cloud

Post by Mike Jackson »

Doug, there is a lot of good logic in what you say. On the flip side, the new Adobe Camera Raw they included in version 6 and the Content-Aware features they added in versions 5 and 6 make it a worthwhile expense and effort for me. I'd absolutely hate to go back to version 4, so there must be something to it. The updated ACR makes the initial processing of every image better. Isn't that one of the end goals?

Cheers,
Mike Jackson / co-administrator
Golden Era Studios
Vintage Ornamental Clip art
Jackson Hole, WY

Photography site:
Teton Images
Jackson Hole photography blog:
Best of the Tetons
Doug Bernhardt
Posts: 1077
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:29 am
Location: Ottawa Canada
Contact:

Re: Creative Cloud

Post by Doug Bernhardt »

Mike....were you running CS previously? The reason I ask as I contacted Adobe to get a box set of CS6 Creative suite yesterday and it is a much bigger deal than I thought. They told me they don't send out the packaged CD's anymore and spent more than a little time trying to talk me into cloud. The upshot was that for me to up-grade through the " cloud version" from CS4 was $29 mth rather than anything like the $79 or so you mentioned. I'm thinking now I'll just jump on e-bay and snag the pshop and illy for the mac I'll change to in the not so distant future. Your comment regarding using the same version of photoshop for as long as "the platform permits" has helped me decide on a Mac as they seem so easily backward compatible.

More on all this soon I'm sure....also I just have to add that your work in photography with Photoshop absolutely justifies your position. What I need photoshop to do is far less rigorous and mainly simple image processing. The digital world of photography it'self is so far and above film in dynamic range etc I doubt that my requirements could ever exceed the performance of something as powerful as CS4
Robare M. Novou
Posts: 424
Joined: Thu May 06, 2004 11:18 am
Location: Milwaukee
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Re: Creative Cloud

Post by Robare M. Novou »

I can see where someone who does cutting edge photography would need the constant updates that adobe rolls out. You need those updates to stay competitive with the other professional photographers.

But for the most part we here are simple sign painters / sign makers.

And we could probably get by on Adobe 9 or 10.

I could get by on Corel 8 if I had to.

I currently use Corel X3 (13), but have Corel 14 still in the shrink wrap if I ever get bored with all the bells and whistles in X3.

I also have Adobe CS6 on Disk, the web/graphic designer package.

I use Coreldraw X3 to make signs and vectorize with. The reason being is that there are some features in Corel that are not available in Adobe Illustrator. Like Scaling...I can scale my drawings in Coreldraw....but in Adobe illustrator I can not...unless someone here has figured it out and can tell us how to make a scale of say...1 inch equals 1 foot. Me and the rest of the Illustrator using world will give you a big hug.

I am told the reason for this lack of measurement support is because Adobe Illustrator is an "ART PROGRAM" and not a "DRAWING PROGRAM"...well la de f*cking dah.

There are also complaints that Adobe's "Snap To" command is not as powerful as Corel's. This is true...I know it first hand.

You pay all that money for the Adobe Program and you can't get better tools than an inexpensive Corel Program.

What is the digital working graphics world coming to.?

Oh yeah...the cloud.! Updates on the fly without you even knowing it. How cool is that.?

You don't own it, they own you.!!! (lease...same thing)

Don't Pay and you get booted from the system..er I mean cloud. Wasn't there some movie where some guy got kicked off his cloud.? Ahhhh no, that was a Rolling Stones Song...Hey You...get off of my cloud.!

So if you don't pay, you don't play...not to worry I have it on disk...and until those pirates at Adobe decide not to honor my serial number for CS6 sometime down the road...I'll be good to go, cloud or no cloud.

If you want to talk about expensive bloated software, we can talk about dreamweaver.

If you want to talk about a free download with less bloat we can talk about notepad++.

To do the basics of photo editing you can use Corel PhotoPaint 8 and up.

To do the basics of photo editing you can use Adobe Photoshop 8 and up.
What's On Your Book Shelf ?

http://www.milwaukeesignworks.com
Mike Jackson
Site Admin
Posts: 1705
Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 11:02 pm
Location: Jackson Hole, WY
Contact:

Re: Creative Cloud

Post by Mike Jackson »

Like I said in the original post, it "is not for everyone". I made the post for anyone considering going that route. For me, it made a lot of sense and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. There is special pricing for people with legacy PS until the end of the month, making it an even easier decision.
Mike Jackson / co-administrator
Golden Era Studios
Vintage Ornamental Clip art
Jackson Hole, WY

Photography site:
Teton Images
Jackson Hole photography blog:
Best of the Tetons
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