Adobe

Adobe create problems for their users

It has been brought to my attention that there are some problems with creating ePUB documents with Adobe Indesign 5.0.

Apparently Adobe have fixed the problems but rather than allow users to receive an update they are telling them to upgrade to 5.5 to get the fix.

Is that a fair thing to do? Im sure there are people who happily pay for new products when the ones they have are faulty but it doesn’t seem right to me.

More to come
Adobe also plans to radically change  the system where users of their software could upgrade to the latest version of the program for an upgrade fee. In the past you would have paid something like £160 ($248.00 US) for an upgrade from say Photoshop CS2 to CS5. Now the planned upgrade version to CS6 is only available if you own the previous release meaning that if you have missed out on the upgrade to CS5 but wanted to upgrade your CS4 ,3 or 2 to CS6 you will need to pay the full price of the program again.

This will mean that someone moving to Photoshop CS6 will have to pay the same as someone who hasn’t paid Adobe in the past. Currently Photoshop CS5 sells on the Adobe store for £548 excluding sales tax (VAT) – that is $851 US.

Clients who are not VAT registered will need to pay £657 or its equivalent for the upgrade (that’s over $1,000.00 US) when moving to Photoshop CS6 and assuming the price remains the same as current.

Adobe have offered a time limited plan for users of CS2,3,4 to upgrade to CS5 at 20% less  then pay the separate upgrade to CS6 when it comes out, very generous of them to offer this?

Clearly we are in an unhealthy situation where Adobe are feeling strong enough to milk their customers. Once dominant companies such as Quark have in the past also gone through such a stage.

In a competitive market this does not happen, market failure is causing Adobe to move to a place it should not be. In the future we need to be cautious with dealing with this ugly aspect of the company, this means expecting the software to function as specified, if we are to pay (much) more then we need to demand more.

Here is the statement from a serious user of Adobe software who was kind enough to write to me detailing her story:

I was using InDesign CS5 to create an ePub of my new book, The Global Indie Author: How anyone can self-publish in the U.S. and worldwide markets. (I am both a writer and a photographer.) The export to ePub utility in CS5 is full of bugs that are program-specific, meaning they are not the result of unforeseen issues with your OS or in conflict with another program. It was clear InDesign CS5 had been released prematurely: there was no way the programmers didn’t know about these bugs. To add insult to injury, Adobe didn’t release any patches; they simply “fixed” the problems for CS5.5 and told consumers to upgrade. It was outrageous. The analogy I made was to a car with a manufacturing defect: the company is forced by law to perform a recall; they can’t just say, “Oh, we fixed that problem in the next model; just go buy a new car.” Yet this was precisely what Adobe was doing. So I complained both publicly and directly to Adobe and they offered me a free upgrade to CS5.5. I have no illusions it was to neutralize the threat I posed, and fair enough. But I hope others will realise that Adobe is not so big that they are impervious to consumer ill-will.
Michelle Demers

 

 

Client Advisory: Adobe release CS5.5

Adobe have decided to change the way they release products. Historically they operated a system of 18 months between major releases of the Creative Suite products but have now decided to change this to 24 months with a minor 0.5 release every 12 months.

Its all part of a plan to extract more money of course and Adobe have also decided to offer the option of a software rental scheme at the same time that enables you to pay for products on a monthly basis (no pay – no work).
There is no change to Photoshop software compared to 5.0 so no real reason to upgrade at present though the default Photoshop included in Suites is now the extended rather than the standard version which will be useful when CS6 is released in 12 months time (Update : Applies to the subscription version of the premium only – dash!)
Adobe had better get their pricing right on this, they have a reputation for being expensive, if they push too hard then it will be worthwhile for another developer to challenge Adobes monopoly. I’m not keen on monopolies and Adobe have a real monopoly on image editing software.

Photoshop CS5 update 12.0.3 (windows only)

Adobe have historically released a 0.1 release of most versions of Photoshop over the years so it was unusual to see a 0.2 release some time ago. Today Adobe release a 0.3 update bringing the total to 3.

To be fair most of the bugs look pretty obscure and I have not noticed many of them myself. All the fixes seem to be platform dependant (fonts etc) so this release is just for Windows systems.

If you dont get updated automatically then select from the “Help” menu the subitem “Updates…”
You can check your version of Photoshop by selecting the “Help” menu and choosing “About Photoshop…”

Lightroom tethered shooting

Just a quick update to say that when using the latest version of Lightroom 3.2 and Canon capture software I had no problems on recent shoots so it looks like the update has helped.
I’m still getting Lightroom 3.2 crashes when opening catalogues occasionally but it is less ropey than in the past.(not exactly high praise, lets just say its workable.)

Stephen

Photoshop CS5 0.1 Update now out

As expected Adobe have cleaned up a few bugs from the code of Photoshop CS5. It looks like most of the serious ones are in the 64bit Mac version but this update also addresses PC issues.

The most annoying one for me was inconsistent performance when using keyboard shortcuts for zooming etc.

I recommend you install this update asap by selecting  “updates…” under the help menu in Photoshop.

Field trial of Lightroom 3 tethered shooting

Just back from a very pleasant if hard working 2 day shoot with Clive Nichols.

I thought this would be a good trial of Lightroom 3 tethered capture.

It was.

Tethered capture is a real necessity with art directors and clients on a shoot as each shot needs checking and changes made before each setup is signed off and we can move onto the next one.

We abandoned Lightroom 3’s built in camera control straight away as although we could trigger the shutter we only had a readout of aperture and shutter speed so could not make exposure adjustments from the laptop, this was important as when the camera is high up or in a tight corner it is difficult to adjust the camera itself.

We reverted to the Canon software for controlling the camera and setup Lightroom 3 to auto import images from the capture folder. This did work most of the time but we had a few glitches where the images did not make it through. As soon as I realised this was slowing the shoot down I reverted to Lightroom 2.7 which performed the same functions perfectly.

Lesson: Always keep the last good version of software on your computer till you are sure the new version is ok.

It could be that any forthcoming update (3.1?) will sort this problem and perhaps Adobe could spend some of that money they make in extending the functionality to camera control at some point. Until then I’m sticking to 2.7 for tethered shooting.

Lightroom 3 released

I’m not a keen fan of Lightroom for productive imaging workflow but do think its a great way to manage collections of images (search, re purposing etc). Its ideal for small to medium sized businesses who don’t have custom programmed image databases but need some of that functionality.
Its also my preferred platform for auto importing when shooting tethered when its important for art directors to see the shot asap after the shutter is released (though via the canon capture software rather than the built in tethered options). I have been using the Beta of 3 for a while, the release code is on order and I will let you know if there are any changes.

More details from Adobe here: http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshoplightroom/?promoid=DTEWE

GPS Location data panel for Photoshop CS5

For clients who like as rich a metadata set as possible there is nothing like having the location you took an image embedded in it. This has been possible for a while in supported cameras (or via GPS attachments) and now Adobe are supporting the resulting GPS data via a new plug in panel. It’s a manual download and install from here:

for windows
for mac

Just follow the install advice you find there. (What is not mentioned is that if you still don’t see the GPS panel when installed you may need to click on preferences in the file info dialog and select “Restore default dialog”)

Be aware that having rich metadata in your Master collection is a good thing for you but you may want to consider erasing such metadata from versions of the files going out to clients if the images contain subjects such as endangered species or private gardens where its best not to reveal the exact location.
Contact me if you need assistance in automating the stripping out of metadata from retail files, this can be done field by field right down to retaining only essential metadata such as copyright, contact, caption and keyword information.