# PS Photography Program



## mStevens (Feb 8, 2014)

The recent Adobe offer for $9.99/month looks like a good deal. You get PS CC and LR5. I mainly use LR4 to touchup my photos (raw) and upload to SmugMug. I am an amateur. My question is what can I do in CC that I cannot do in LR4 for my BASIC touchups (exposure,noise,cropping,shadows,highlights etc.).


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## RunAndGun (Feb 8, 2014)

mStevens said:


> The recent Adobe offer for $9.99/month looks like a good deal. You get PS CC and LR5. I mainly use LR4 to touchup my photos (raw) and upload to SmugMug. I am an amateur. *My question is what can I do in CC that I cannot do in LR4* for my BASIC touchups (exposure,noise,cropping,shadows,highlights etc.).



You can have the privilege of giving Adobe $10 per month for every month that you want to use their software instead of buying it once and being done with it, like with your existing copy of LR.


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## Gert Arijs (Feb 8, 2014)

In your case, I suggest it would be more interesting to purchase the LR5 upgrade. But maybe it would be even wiser to just keep using LR4 and invest the money in online training.
You could go the cheapo way by just watching free online tutorials and not invest in anything at all. I would think you could learn some more about post-processing if you just use the basic adjustments. There's a ton of LR-tutorials on youtube, very high quality.
Good luck choosing!


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## mStevens (Feb 8, 2014)

Good advice! Thanks.


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## Logan (Feb 13, 2014)

its a great deal. even compared to pirated lr and ps, its still a good deal in my books. updated bug free software means more than most people appreciate. 

i dont understand why people who spend 5k a year on lenses wont spend 100 bucks a year on arguably everything you need for post production. its a no brainer. you get to develop your own files in the best software out there for the cost of buying 2 rolls of drugstore film a month.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Feb 14, 2014)

I went ahead and am giving it a try. With Washington State sales tax, it comes to $129.60 a year.


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## Orangutan (Feb 14, 2014)

Logan said:


> i dont understand why people who spend 5k a year on lenses wont spend 100 bucks a year on arguably everything you need for post production. its a no brainer. you get to develop your own files in the best software out there for the cost of buying 2 rolls of drugstore film a month.



If you have the money, or if this is your business then yes, it's a good deal. The problem with CC is that it requires me to pay that monthly fee FOREVER. If I ever stop paying I lose access to the software, and therefore lose access to my edits...unless I have the foresight and time to export them all to some interchange format.

Remember when WordPerfect was king of word processing? What if you had old drafts of your Great <national> Novel written in WordPerfect, and there were no other product that could read that format (either through neglect or intellectual property restrictions). Your writings would be trapped. I have an allergic reaction to the very notion that my data (my edits) could ever be held hostage.

Again, it is a good deal for pros, or for people whose financial resources will never be challenged by that monthly bill (even with the inevitable increases once they have critical mass of addicts).

That brings up an important question: can PS Elements read PS CC files?

I have no problem with Adobe offering CC as an option, but perpetual licensing, at reasonable cost, should also be available.


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## Logan (Feb 14, 2014)

forever is not a time scale that software works on. without serious effort you cant run most programs from 15 years ago that you own outright, even if you have a floppy drive still. do you?


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## Orangutan (Feb 14, 2014)

Logan said:


> forever is not a time scale that software works on. without serious effort you cant run most programs from 15 years ago that you own outright, even if you have a floppy drive still. do you?



There's a whole secondary market for support of legacy systems I certainly can open some files I created 15, 20 or more years ago. I've done a fair amount of IT in my career, and on several occasions I have pulled an obsolete machine out of storage, installed an obsolete OS, such as Windows 3.1, installed some ancient specialty software from a stack of floppies; all of this was to retrieve / export some important document or chart or bit of data in a proprietary format. But you're correct to say that's uncommon.

I could also envision inconveniences or time delays that might occur if an elderly/inactive photographer dies and the family is not able to get to his/her work in a timely way. Again, this is uncommon.

And another scenario: a student joins CC on the cheap (65% discount for the whole suite) while in school, and learns to use it well. Once out of school, the price becomes a substantial monthly expense to someone just entering the job market.

I think what really irks me is that, once they have enough CC addicts, they can jack up the price annually to extort just a few more dollars from each customer. If I refuse, I don't merely lose upgrade rights, I lose rights to my current software. If I'm going to commit my time and effort to learn and use a complex product, I don't want to worry about whether I'll feel the price has become extortionate. It reminds me a bit of the days before cell phone numbers were portable: if you wanted to switch to a cheaper/better plan you had to give up your cell#.


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## cayenne (Feb 14, 2014)

mStevens said:


> The recent Adobe offer for $9.99/month looks like a good deal. You get PS CC and LR5. I mainly use LR4 to touchup my photos (raw) and upload to SmugMug. I am an amateur. My question is what can I do in CC that I cannot do in LR4 for my BASIC touchups (exposure,noise,cropping,shadows,highlights etc.).



Upgrade to LR5...and save your money.

From what it sounds like, you have no need to *rent *software from Adobe.

If you're interested in playing with actual Photoshop, I'd advise maybe buying the PS Essentials program, you can get a taste of real PS that way and see if you like it.

The Adobe CS6 tools are still available for sale, if you want to take the plunge on other Adobe apps, I'd recommend for now, buying those and holding off on paying Adobe rent every month.


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## cayenne (Feb 14, 2014)

Logan said:


> forever is not a time scale that software works on. without serious effort you cant run most programs from 15 years ago that you own outright, even if you have a floppy drive still. do you?



Actually these days, it is childs play to do this...you can easily and readily set up a VM (Virtual Machine) to run any particular OS and application for it, using things like :

Virtual Box: (FREE)
https://www.virtualbox.org/

VMware:
http://www.vmware.com/

Parallels (mac only)
http://www.parallels.com/

And many of us are trying to vote with our wallets. Other companies, MS for example, have tried the rental software model, and so far (thankfully) have not succeeded.

It may work for some, but many out here prefer to have a choice to rent or buy perpetual licenses. I think we may be seeing Adobe keep extending these "deals" because the uptake and acceptance of this model may not be up to what they're expecting.

I say good....maybe they'll change like other companies that have tried this and go back to at least also offering purchase rather than rental only.

cayenne

ps. Actually yes, I do have USB floppy drive at home, just in case I or someone I know comes across some old files on a floppy they need to retrieve.


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