Boycott Creative Cloud?

[Mike Wickham]

If you haven't heard, CS6 is the last CS version. From now on, you have to rent your applications via the Creative Cloud. I don't like the new subscription model. I have bought every CS upgrade since version 1, but it looks like CS6 is the end for me, even if it means keeping an old computer around just to run CS6 applications.

Perhaps Adobe would change its mind in a few months if most everyone avoided signing up for the subscription. In any case, they've created a real opportunity for competitors.

[crapola]

I have been vacuuming my front yard today and I just wonder why all my neighbors just can't understand.

[Steven L. Gotz]

I have been spending an enormous amount of time on successful photographer's sites. It is difficult to decide to become a photographer and not look at other people's work to see what kind of shots you want to emulate.

There are two ways to look at photography nowadays it seems.

There are those who shoot photographs of what they see and tweak them in Lightroom or Photoshop. I shoot RAW so I pretty much have to use one or the other. I would primarily fall into this category. I shoot what I see through the lens, even if it means I had to create the situation and the lighting, etc. I do my best to make things look the way I remember them, (or wish they had been).

Then there are those who use compositing to create things that were never there in the first place. I have been known to do that, but not so much anymore.

In either case, I am told that Elements can do 80% to 90% of what is needed by photographers and now Lightroom 5 has made this even more possible with the addition of some of the features that used to be handled by Photoshop.

The following video might explain my new found point of view. I am basically listening to Jared Polin and Scott Kelby. Jared is dangerous because he is quite convincing about how I should spend my money. I shoot RAW because of him, have two lav mics he recommended and my camera bag was chosen because of one of his videos. I am not unhappy with any of this, I just have to be careful watching him tout new stuff.

Scott's videos have shown me how to look at photographs from a photographers viewpoint. And his Photoshop stuff has helped me enormously.

You can watch the entire hour or just jump to 36:20 to see what I mean.

[444333222111]

There are two ways to look at photography nowadays it seems.

Good luck with that!

[Steven L. Gotz]

Good luck with that!

I have no clue what you meant by that.

If you disagree, I would like to hear why. It seems pretty clear to me. The two basic priciples are "create then photograph" (and tweak) and "photograph then create".

Of course, I have seen pictures created with Photoshop that have never been near a camera, yet I would swear that they were photographs if I had not been told otherwise.

[Trevor.Dennis]

OK Steven.  That's an interesting post.  I'm in New Zealand where we have the PSNZ which represents non-professionals, and is either directly or indirectly involved, in a number of national and regional Exhibitions and Salons.  They post a number of successful images on a flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/psnz

Then we have the NZIPP which represents professional photographers, and they have their annual Iris Awards.  There a re number of galleries from last year’s winners here:

http://www.nzipp.org.nz/nzippweb/Default.aspx?tabid=422

Both have a high percentage of heavily edited images.  I just had a quick look and the NZIPP had a ‘very’ high percentage!  It doesn’t matter what your own opinions are about Photoshopped imagery.  If you want to compete at National and International levels, if the rules allow it, people are going to do it, and clients are going to want it because those images have impact and attract attention.

I know for a fact, that some of those pictures were done with nothing more with Lightroom using presets.  I don’t use LR, but from what I have seen, you can get a lot those Topaz, Perfect Suite, and Nik filter looks with LR presets, and most of them are free.  Of the rest, I wonder how many used Elements?  My guess is very few, and they mostly used a version of Photoshop.

[Steven L. Gotz]

Trevor,

Those links led me to some perfect examples of what I mean.

The NZ Photographer of the Year 2012 is someone from the second category. She makes art with her camera, sure, but the pictures on display show off her Photoshop talents as much her photographic talents. (Both appear to be considerable.) I have no idea how she does what she does and would not presume to guess if she could do that with Photoshop Elements. I would assume she needs the full version.

I am just guessing, because it would be easy enough to get fooled, but going out on a limb I would say that the winners in Photojournalism, Portrait Classic, and most of the travel photos are in the first category. They could use Lightroom 5 for almost everything and only go into Photoshop now and then or only for small touchups. They could probably get away with Photoshop Elements.

Of course, I just did a lot of generalizing, and some of what I saw might have been heavily Photoshopped when I thought they were not, and some not at all when I thought they were.

As for Lightroom, I suggest that people watch as many of these 100 short videos as it takes to get the idea that they are missing out on something.

http://photoshopuser.com/lightroom/

[Alan_Craven]

There has just been a fuss in the UK about the award of a photographic prize to a person who took someone elses published photograph, without permission, manipulated it, and submitted the modified image to the competition.  She argued that nowhere in the terms and conditions did it state that the starting point for an entry must be a photograph that you took yourself.

After much argument the award was witheld, I believe.

[Steven L. Gotz]

As I learn to take photographs with the intention of hopefully having someone actually call mine "Fine Art Photographs" one of these days, I am seeing a severe blurring of the line between what I consider a photograph (capture what is on the other side of the lens) and Photoshop (create whatever you have the talent to create).

I shoot RAW. Blame Jared Polin for that. I can't publish a single photograph without Lightroom or Camera RAW. Unless I want to go back to shooting JPG and letting camera settings almost completely decide what the image should look like instead of letting me do it after the fact based on all of the information available to me in the RAW file.

So while I would probably not vote for the winner of a photography contest who had done more than basic retouching to achieve the final image, I can certainly understand why other people would vote the other way.

The idea of using someone else's photograph for a photography contest is almost obscene. With or without permission.

But what do I know? In seven months I still haven't taken a photograph I deem worth getting printed to frame and put on my wall. Well, I took a couple I like of a young lady but I doubt my wife would be happy to have her on my wall until she was just one of many different photographs.

[Trevor.Dennis]

Alan Craven wrote:

There has just been a fuss in the UK about the award of a photographic prize to a person who took someone elses published photograph, without permission, manipulated it, and submitted the modified image to the competition.  She argued that nowhere in the terms and conditions did it state that the starting point for an entry must be a photograph that you took yourself.

After much argument the award was witheld, I believe.

Graeme Guy is rated one of the best amateur natural history photographers in the world, and regularly gets Champion Image and a bunch of medals in natural history exhibitions and salons all over the world.  The humming birds below are an example of his work (you can view more HERE). 

Graeme was one of the speakers, and ran a couple of workshops at the PSNZ National Convention in Nelson in 2010, and I attended both workshops.  In fact Graeme’s laptop would not play nicely with the projector, so I had to rush back to my hotel to get mine, and I still have his Powerpoint on it. I also had the nerve-racking privilege of teaching some HDR and Photoshop techniques to Graeme and 39 other similarly qualified photographers in two workshops that I had been invited to run.

One of the rules in NZ Natural History competitions is that nowhere in the image is the ‘Hand-of-Man’ allowed to appear.  Graeme told us that the humming birds are photographed with the aid of seven small flash guns set to 1/128^th power, which gives an effective shutter speed of about 1/30,000^th of a second, and that’s how he is able to freeze their rapid wing movement.  I’ve also run a number of lighting workshops, and I asked Graeme how it was that with all that flash power involved, the background was not black?  He answered that two of the seven flash guns are directed at a false background, which varies between a poster sized photograph printed on matt paper, or camouflage netting.

So someone else in the audience asked how these false backgrounds could possibly comply with the Hand-of-Man rule.  One of the main PSNZ Natural History judges, a Ron McKie, who happened to be a very good friend of Graeme’s came to his defence saying it was OK because these items were completely ‘out of focus’.

Hmmm… stunned silence all round, and a change of the rules less than a year later.

[Alan_Craven]

Hmm?  An interesting one.  I would regard using a background in this way as perfectly legitimate.  The hand of man is inevitably involved - how do you distinguish between the use of multiple flash-guns and that background?  If one goes nit-picking, where does the camera fit into this?

My reading of what I take to be your original regulations would be that image editing would be be proscribed, but detecting light touch editing would not be easy.  I would have assumed that the shutter would have to be fired manually too.

Also once you erase the line in the sand, or fail to define it adequately, where do you decide that the limits occur?

I have come across Graeme Guy's work through a fellow member of Royal Forest and Bird, who, whilst an accomplished photographer himself, holds Graeme Guy in reverence.

[Steven L. Gotz]

I agree with Alan.

He didn't paint in the feathers, he used tools to accomplish the task. The blue background could just have easily been a completely out of focus background instead, but it might also have been a blue wall of a building. He arranged for the photograph in the same way as someone places a model in just the right light. No harm, no foul there. For all I care, he could have erased the background completely and just replaced it.

I understand that it is a fine line, but in my rather limited experience, I have developed the opinion that taking things out of a photograph using Photoshop, is different than putting them in using Photoshop.  Adding a different background is probably too far out there but I am willing to accept a solid color as a replacement and not call it "adding". Because really, if you could blur a background using the right lens, aperture and distances to get the perfect DOF, why not?

How the heck I would even attempt to write rules like that, I have no idea. But it sounds right when I visualize what I mean in my head.

[Tom_Murray_1]

How does this relate to the title of this thread?

[crapola]

Who cares. We can all watch the tail wag the dog on Monday.

[Steven L. Gotz]

How does this relate to the title of this thread?

It doesn't.

It stemmed from a comment I made regarding using Photoshop Elements, which still has a perpetual license, and Lightroom 5, which still has a perpetual license, instead of paying a monthly fee for Photoshop.

That led to a discussion about how much compositing is really being done by professional photogrphers that can't be handled by Elements.

That would effectively be boycotting the Creative Cloud. So, back on topic.

Feel better now?

Edit: Besides, it is better than discussing if Adobe and Hitler are in any way whatsoever equivalent, similar, or even remotely tied together in any way.

[uhanepono]

I began using PS way back (1997) to cobble together scanned collage snippets from magazines (back when there were magazines). I still use it for collage among other things like comps from digital photos and savaged images from all over the place as well as my own camera's output. Puppet warp, liquify (which I can still use with a layer copy if I can't get Smart objects in the game) and the awesome brush perameters would be the only tools I would really really miss if I completely left adobe. I make full use of ALL the blend modes too. Other apps are fine for most of my photographic concerns, lightroom, onone etc. For comps and collages, and 3D though, and for the amazing brushes there is still nothing else I have tried that matches these PS tools. comps and collage are fun and this late in the day they are the life of the party! I have seen over the years more and more borrowing, resampling etc in both music and image rendering that it's really a free-for-all out there. I feel there as many approaches as there are people creating. My policy is that if the image I want to use is going to end up recognizable I check to see if there is a © on the image and if so I get in contact with the © holder and ask if I can use it for my collage, comp or as painting source material. I send them a link to my output and I have NEVER been turned down so far. ask and it is given. So PS6 is enough for me so far. If I had the newer tools I would play with them but I would not, at this point abandon my PC6, which feels more precious to me all of a sudden. The cloud is a trap. I can wait them out for other apps to have the same features...... this thread does meander a bit indeed! Rivers often do.

[Lundberg02]

Apparently you have never used Painter.

[uhanepono]

Corel painter? Honestly I tried so hard to love it. It's such a CPU hog and I run a beefed up macbookpro and still those brushes lag and drag and lo the spinning beach ball of death (mac speak) is upon me. There are a few things I can use it for and the brushes do have lots of tweeks available if I'm just doodling on a small doc with not much resolution. I do love to make seamless patterns and play with nozzles etc like the next guy and I do fool around on it a bit but when I start cobbling together a comp or collage with lots of elements, adding masks and layers and styles and adjsutments and I want to really move faston a roll corel painter gets bogged down. I find the interface extremely crowded as well. It's a good thing I have an external monitor. I would need a much more robust system to really make full use of corel. Mind you, I love the app! And when I had access to a brawny desktop system it was soo much fun. I do prefer PS for layered docs that get masive and still don't slow down my mac OS. Thas was one of the biggest upgrades for me from PS5.1 to 6 extended; the speed. Ah corel, so much potencial, so CPU intensive.

[Lundberg02]

uhanepono, do you have Painter 12? It's much faster than 10 and better than 11.

Anyway, here are some PS CC alternatives,    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418674,00.asp

[uhanepono]

Yes I have it painter 12. I still update and yes it's a bit faster but no where near as fast and agile with stylus response as adobe. Thanks for the alternatives link. I want to be clear, though, that I love PS6 extended and am not looking to replace it out of any need to make a statement any more. After reading and posting to many threads on a handful of forums and listening to numerous podcasts I have come to a peaceful place where I am happy with what PS6 does for me at this juncture and eager to get the new features in CC. But I am not so eager to get them as I am content to wait and watch what happens in the constatly shifting sands of image processing options. There are other apps that do things PS6 does not do or that do better and they provide me a nice complement (Try photomatix for HDR, for example. Or perfect photo suite 7 for masks and focus manipulation). Perhaps Corel will make performance improvements for mac users, perhaps I will get a nice new lighning-fast desktop monster or a cintique even! Perhaps gimp will suddenly get a better UI, perhaps viable 3D will come to photoline and/or a timeline. Perhpas adobe will release a CS7 type permanent license version of those CC upgrades. Perhaps I will, by then be more intersted in other things myself. I am happy to allow things to change as needs and desires dictate at this point. If people want the CC features in a full license form then, by golly some enterpriseing soul will come along and oblige them! Never fails! CC's already been cracked, I hear, so if your hungry enough to sneak in the backdoor to get to the buffet table you can go that way. Reading the finacial reports and where adbe is making aquisitions and headway (on the seeking alpha website) I see that adobe's focus is shifting to other concerns that are not my own. I see them eventually leaving the image processing field to others. Adobe seems to be moving on. So shall I.

Lundberg02 wrote:

uhanepono, do you have Painter 12? It's much faster than 10 and better than 11.

Anyway, here are some PS CC alternatives,    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418674,00.asp

[Danny_Michael]

Well known issue with Painter 12 brushes and a simple fix. Uncheck "Multicore" in the brush general properties. Painter will then will use it's brushes with no lag. You'll need to do this with each brush that exhibits the problem.

[uhanepono]

well now, that is a very handy tip!! thanks. I will do that!!

Danny Michael wrote:

Well known issue with Painter 12 brushes and a simple fix. Uncheck "Multicore" in the brush general properties. Painter will then will use it's brushes with no lag. You'll need to do this with each brush that exhibits the problem.

[Lundberg02]

Thanks Danny, was that also applicable to 10 and 11? i never saw that in  response to brush lag complaints in 10. I bought 11 very cheaply and 12 came out so soon I never used it.

In re Capture One: I bought the Express 7 version. Importing images is grossly unnecessarily  complex. It's Swedish, so it's over-engineered.

[Jeff Schewe]

Lundberg02 wrote:

In re Capture One: I bought the Express 7 version. Importing images is grossly unnecessarily  complex. It's Swedish, so it's over-engineered.

Heaven forbid dooode...C1/Phase One is Danish not Swedish (you have no idea just how much you've just offended the Danes!!!)

[Aegis_Kleais]

I have CS5, was planning on upgrading to "CS7", but costs are 100% more expensive.  I'll make do with what I have, but I won't even FATHOM upgrading to CS6 and giving Adobe more money.  If CC is how it will be, then CS5 will be my last version. 

[uhanepono]

You are missing out by not getting CS6 if you do want an upgrade! Do it for yourself. Show adobe you are willing to pay to own! And then don't subscribe to CC and show them, further, that you are NOT willing to rent. CS6 has enough upgrade value from 5.1 to make it worth while. Adobe is moving away from software development and into online marketing anyway so this, right now, is the peak of the mountain. Others companies will be moving inovation forward from now on.

Aegis Kleais wrote:

I have CS5, was planning on upgrading to "CS7", but costs are 100% more expensive.  I'll make do with what I have, but I won't even FATHOM upgrading to CS6 and giving Adobe more money.  If CC is how it will be, then CS5 will be my last version.