I upgraded PS CS3 to PS CS6 and I must say for $199 it was a worthy upgrade. I'm thrilled to have the new groovy dark UI, fast graphics engine, 64 bit ops, and nifty new tools. CS6 was the first version of PS Adobe compelled me to upgrade to since CS3. Got along fine with the old warhorse. 

Now Adobe has intro'd this Cloud service, something I predict is destined to fail for the same reason I didn't upgrade PS from CS3 until CS6. The reason being, Adobe is a transparently greedy company always on the come offering ridiculously expensive unnecessary incremental upgrades the world can live without. But I love my PS CS6!

My complaint is it takes so much time to figure out what is the best option. I have the production bundle from CS5, but I upgraded inDesign to 5.5. I use photoshop the most so I might just upgrade that. I use AE less and less. I have almost never touched most of the other apps from the production bundle.

I've downloaded Muse and am playing with it. Might like to use that...but they only offer it as a subscription.

It's so confusing and such a mess. It's like they are making it as confusing as possible. I do not like the idea of renting software and I can't imagine wanting all that 'stuff' installed. 

I do wish they went back to putting out good software that wasn't buggy. I remember when they would put out a version AND offer valuable upgrades along the way to the next big upgrade. Now they put something out, that usually has some bad bugs. They might or might not fix those with point upgrades, then it's time for another $600 bucks.

It gets old. I think lowering prices is smarter than this subscription stuff. But then again, after their 'CEO' got into that P match with Steve Jobs over Flash, it was obvious they are not what they used to be. The higher-ups are just milking the company for what they can get. So yeah, it's not like I enjoy dealing with them anymore.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Fearing 

My complaint is it takes so much time to figure out what is the best option. I have the production bundle from CS5, but I upgraded inDesign to 5.5. I use photoshop the most so I might just upgrade that.

 

What you write does not make sense. Unless things have changed since I last inquired you cannot upgrade just a single app based on a previous suite purchase. You have to pay full price if you want to revert back to purchasing / upgrading on an app by app basis.

I've stopped using Adobe for now. For design mockups Keynote is great. For photo-manipulation stuff Pixelmator looks decent. I don't do much vector stuff but I hear there's a lot out there. For coding Coda is a superior alternative to Dreamweaver. Then of course there's Logic and iMovie/Final Cut. So for "pros" Adobe is de facto, fine, but for small business/ small-medium enterprise which needs to produce or manipulate its own new media, alternatives to the very expensive Creative Suite are attractive and available now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Fearing 

My complaint is it takes so much time to figure out what is the best option. I have the production bundle from CS5, but I upgraded inDesign to 5.5. I use photoshop the most so I might just upgrade that. I use AE less and less. I have almost never touched most of the other apps from the production bundle.

 

I've downloaded Muse and am playing with it. Might like to use that...but they only offer it as a subscription.

 

It's so confusing and such a mess. It's like they are making it as confusing as possible. I do not like the idea of renting software and I can't imagine wanting all that 'stuff' installed. 

 

I do wish they went back to putting out good software that wasn't buggy. I remember when they would put out a version AND offer valuable upgrades along the way to the next big upgrade. Now they put something out, that usually has some bad bugs. They might or might not fix those with point upgrades, then it's time for another $600 bucks.

 

It gets old. I think lowering prices is smarter than this subscription stuff. But then again, after their 'CEO' got into that P match with Steve Jobs over Flash, it was obvious they are not what they used to be. The higher-ups are just milking the company for what they can get. So yeah, it's not like I enjoy dealing with them anymore.

Indeed, the peak of Adobe seems to have come and recently passed. This is typical of what Tribal Leadership calls Stage 3 behaviour. Once interests are entrenched in a company's culture, everything stagnates and is focused on each department or the whole company "optimising" what they can and relying on business models that simply don't apply to the real world as much as they used to.

In terms of new media anyway, a lot of design can be done based on the values and vision of the organisation, rather than being the "best designer". Once that shift in thinking occurs, so too the need to evaluate whether Creative Suite is used for values and vision or for "me being the best designer".

Has anyone tried to buy creative cloud? It is completely broken in Safari for me. Blank page after several botched attempts, I gave up. They really need to work on the validation part of the upgrade process. I am qualified but the numerous hoops to jump through and failed shopping experience is a little surprising. Maybe they only tested it with IE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MJ Web 

I upgraded PS CS3 to PS CS6 and I must say for $199 it was a worthy upgrade. I'm thrilled to have the new groovy dark UI, fast graphics engine, 64 bit ops, and nifty new tools. CS6 was the first version of PS Adobe compelled me to upgrade to since CS3. Got along fine with the old warhorse. 

 

Now Adobe has intro'd this Cloud service, something I predict is destined to fail for the same reason I didn't upgrade PS from CS3 until CS6. The reason being, Adobe is a transparently greedy company always on the come offering ridiculously expensive unnecessary incremental upgrades the world can live without. But I love my PS CS6!

I've tried the CS6 Photoshop beta and it is indeed good. But like you mention it's the pricing and jumbled business strategy that is off-putting. Still, one machine at work will have Creative Suite (4/5), but on my Mac, I simply cannot justify the cost anymore.

I bought the production bundle, didn't have InDesign. I had bought InDesign back in 02 or 03. So I have upgraded that as a single program as it is not part of the production bundle. The fact that we are having this discussion means they failed. it's confusing, and stupid. iIt's like the Windows releases with 4 different versions. Buying software shouldn't be this painful.

I am happy for Adobe. With the new iOS and MAS apps, the shift to HTML5, and the statement from their security guy about them being happy about old versions of Flash being disabled, it seems they have decided to stop fighting Apple and ride on their backs to more success.

I've enjoyed using Muse BETA for the past few months. 

Shame I won't be able to use it for free now. For those interested, here is my (basic) site - http://www.halabalu.com

Currently being hosted on iDisk (which is soon to go..)

=(