Adobe

Creative Cloud Lightroom Advisory

 

Adobe updated a number of their programs on the Creative Cloud yesterday.

The new Photoshop CC 2014 installs alongside Photoshop CC and offers to transfer settings from Photoshop CC. Only some setting are transferred across (actions for instance)  and others such as interface colour etc are not so be ready to tweak a little. If the worse comes to the worse you still have the older Photoshop CC to go back to so not too bad (and means you can play with the new features without compromising your stable working version).

Adobe have taken the opportunity in Lightroom 5.5 to now allow the updating of lightroom from the Creative Cloud Control Panel. Previously Lightroom could only be updated by using the Lightroom program to check for updates and them manually downloading the new version.

Unfortunately there appears to be problems with the new form of updating via the CC panel and Lightroom may fail to start when updated in this way.

Until Adobe fix this problem I suggest you download and install the new version of Lightroom directly via these links:

Windows: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5792
Mac: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5791

Adobe write some great imaging software but they are really rubbish at building cloud infrastructure. My assertion that Adobe Creative Cloud is not a robust method of delivering critical imaging software still stands.

Stephen

Adobe forget to patch a server, your credit card and Adobe login may be in the hands of a criminal

I wont criticize Adobe here, I have done it for too long and need 5 minutes rest.

If you received a security email from Adobe (and can confirm it is from Adobe) or noticed your Adobe CC login doesn’t work and your an existing customer of mine then please feel free to get in touch if you need help sorting things.

Forget Adobe’s version of events you can find the real story here:

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/10/adobe-to-announce-source-code-customer-data-breach/ 

Stephen

No need to upgrade to Photoshop CC in 2013

Having used Photoshop CC for a week now I can confirm that there is no real usability advantage in Stock Photography uses over Photoshop CS6. I therefore advise clients not to upgrade to Photoshop CC from Photoshop CS6.

Not only will this save you money it will save you a lot of money.

I do hope Adobe will come to their senses and reverse the 100%+ increase in pricing for clients who regularly upgrade their software would have to pay in renting CC as well as the fact that stopping renting will leave you without access to your files edited in none destructive ways (layered proprietary files).

In the meantime Copyrightimage supports the #adobe2014 campaign, described as “half a plan” in a very pragmatic way it uses the short term reaction by investors against the poor decisions made by the upper management at Adobe as a leveraged way to force change.

Let’s keep things in perspective, we just need fair price increases and perpetual licenses so we can keep things real for our own clients.

http://adobe2014.tumblr.com/

Stephen Johnson

Adobe blink first in Australia

Considerably greater Adobe Creative Cloud pricing in the UK is a big concern for a lot of my clients and my questions to Adobe about how they plan to increase subscription pricing in future has fell on deaf ears.

The Government in Australia have today managed to whip Adobe into action and lower the excessive pricing there by threatening “talks”, I’m hoping that (like the Irish food standards agency) this will prompt someone in the UK government to wake up and take similar action.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2243268/adobe-cuts-its-creative-cloud-membership-prices-in-australia

Can a company continue to generate bad feeling among its customers and still survive?

I look forward to US pricing being available in the UK in the meantime I will advise clients on what is best for them and not what is best for Adobe.

Stephen

Photoshop CS6 retail code

I have just installed Photoshop CS6 from the retail release here at Copyrightimage.
Just a couple of points to help out any clients making the upgrade:

1. If you do have the beta of CS6 already installed then completely uninstall it first before installing the retail code. If you have Photoshop CS5 or earlier installed then dont uninstall it just yet.

2. There is one change since beta that annoys me – when using the zoom tool there are image measurements displayed at the edge of the zoom boundary box. This is very distracting to me, if you also find it annoying then you can turn it off by opening preferences and selecting “none” in the drop down menu of the   “Show Transformation Values” in the Options part of the Interface section.

I found the beta faster and nicer to use than Photoshop CS5 so Im hoping the retail code hasn’t changed this too much. If you are still using CS4 or earlier it may be time to think about swapping to a 64bit operating system and using CS6 in 64bit mode.

Any queries – get in touch,

Stephen

Lightroom 4 now available

Adobe have today released Lightroom 4 to market.
I have just ordered an upgrade copy on-line as I was pleased with the new functionality of the beta version.

The upgrade price (£59.09 inc VAT) is lower than previous versions and the retail price for the full product (£103.88 inc VAT) is also much less than previous versions. Adobe have reduced the price because of market competition from software such as Apple Aperture 3 which is priced at £54.99 for a new licence. A pity there is no competition for Photoshop.

You can read about Lightroom 4 here:
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop-lightroom.html

If you decide to purchase I recommend requesting the box be sent to you, there is free shipping till the end of the month. The software download version costs more money and means no physical media to reinstall from, you will however be supporting the Irish Governments attempts to get the country back from the brink of economic collapse (the higher VAT rate Adobe charge for software downloads from Ireland are the reason for downloads costing more than shipping physical product). Its your call.

Lightroom 4 Public Beta

Looks like Lightroom 4 will be a worthwhile upgrade when it appears later this year.

You can preview the new functionality yourself by downloading the beta from Adobe.

For me the biggest changes are the new develop settings layout, soft proofing for your different printer profiles and the map function will become of interest when more cameras contain gps circuitry.

On a more “Ed Reardon” note Adobe have “kindly encouraged their programmers to get their fingers out” and burning images to DVD is now supported in the 64bit version of Windows 7, something they should fix in Lightroom 3 but have not.

UK upgrade price will no doubt be the same price as the US plus a special supplement to pay for a new Adobe executive aircraft.

Ed