[Locked] Can you purchase photoshop permanently rather than yearly?

[AbbyLarson30]

I want to buy photoshop, but I don't want to pay for creative cloud every month/year, so is there a way that I can purchase photoshop and pay 1 flat fee?

[nobodypanic]

Photoshop is just one of the applications I use,   I am a graphic and web designer/developer.   I do print work as well as web.     I have upgraded systems and the OS a few times.  I am still using Creative suite 5.5 design premium.   I have had no issues.    

I am asking Adobe for a choice,   I think for many of us the perpetual license is the best option when it comes to software that we use for our work.   I do not like being held ransom by a subscription based system.

[Nancy OShea]

This argument has been going on since 2012 and nothing has changed.  Adobe stopped selling the last Creative Suite in January this year.  CS cannot be legally purchased from ANY outlet, re-seller or country now.  Unless you have a stand alone version from the past and a computer OS that can support it, there's no going back to how things were.  It's over.

Serious creatives take it as a business expense along with their office supplies, etc...

Nancy

[nobodypanic]

Serious creatives also understand that demands do change, new software comes out and things move forward, the nice thing about owning a license for that software is you have it and you dont adobe to keep paying adobe to have access to the program you are using for your work.   Being a serious creative is also understanding that adobe is gaining to much control of the nature of your projects and work.   I made a very clear example with indesign and will make one using photoshop.    Lets say you have a number of images you are working on for a client, very complex psd files that are layered.  I am not just talking something like  editing a raw file, cleaning it up a bit and saving it as a tif.  You save those images in, of course, the psd format so they can be accessed and worked on in the future if needed.    Lets say the next year you start using a new application instead of photoshop for work on images,  example Affinity Photo  and then that old client calls you back and you need to access that old layered very complex psd file.   Thing is, if you had CC,  you have to pay adobe a gain to access your old work,  instead of just having that license where you dont have to worry about it at all if you switch applications.  That is what I mean by being held ransom

So its not just about money,  its about having control over your work.  

And its over when customers stop talking about it.   Sorry if  some people roll over and accept it, but I don't just give up on things that affect my work. Having a subscription for people that want it is fine,  but nothing wrong with giving your customers a choice.

So don't insult me with that "serious creatives" line.  I am very serious about this and its not just about how much things cost.

[davescm]

  Lets say the next year you start using a new application instead of photoshop for work on images,  example Affinity Photo  and then that old client calls you back and you need to access that old layered very complex psd file.   Thing is, if you had CC,  you have to pay adobe a gain to access your old work,  instead of just having that license where you dont have to worry about it at all if you switch applications.  That is what I mean by being held ransom

If you plan to leave then you have ample time to convert every PSD to a layered TIFF which can be read elsewhere. No payment - no problem.

I am with Nancy , if you choose to use Adobe software then the subscription is just a cost of doing business, and not an unreasonable cost. If you choose not to , then other alternatives are available.

Dave

[Socrates_in_NJ]

nobodypanic  wrote

Serious creatives also understand that demands do change, new software comes out and things move forward, the nice thing about owning a license for that software is you have it and you dont adobe to keep paying adobe to have access to the program you are using for your work.   Being a serious creative is also understanding that adobe is gaining to much control of the nature of your projects and work.   I made a very clear example with indesign and will make one using photoshop.    Lets say you have a number of images you are working on for a client, very complex psd files that are layered.  I am not just talking something like  editing a raw file, cleaning it up a bit and saving it as a tif.  You save those images in, of course, the psd format so they can be accessed and worked on in the future if needed.    Lets say the next year you start using a new application instead of photoshop for work on images,  example Affinity Photo  and then that old client calls you back and you need to access that old layered very complex psd file.   Thing is, if you had CC,  you have to pay adobe a gain to access your old work,  instead of just having that license where you dont have to worry about it at all if you switch applications.  That is what I mean by being held ransom

So its not just about money,  its about having control over your work.  

And its over when customers stop talking about it.   Sorry if  some people roll over and accept it, but I don't just give up on things that affect my work. Having a subscription for people that want it is fine,  but nothing wrong with giving your customers a choice.

So don't insult me with that "serious creatives" line.  I am very serious about this and its not just about how much things cost.

You can always pretend that you've paid $1000 for the software and that you need to replace the software every eight years.

[Terri_Stevens]

I think you will find Affinity Photo supports psd files directly.

[obvious_isto_oblivious_as]

I too am grossly offended by the "serious creatives" comment and as such you entire dialogue is now perpetually tainted as someone who is not.  In fact, It is my thought that Nancy and some of the other shepards touting the subscription benefits of the cloud are probably paid by Adobe to influence public opinion by putting forth the company statements and ideals and offering them as if an organic public opinion. 

This is actually a fairly common practice, but I had not seen it employed so aggressively since Microsoft was undergoing their anti-trust growing pains.

Try to be seriously creative and understand the tremendous amount of power you just allowed this corporation to cede into your livelihood.  Any office expense??  When was the last time your copy machine wouldn't give you access to copies you already made?  When was the last time your stapler forced you to restaple everything you stapled because it wanted a raise?  

Obviously, I am not seriously creative, or I would have no problem with someone looking over my shoulder to see the unique ways I use these tools so they can be implemented for everyone to use at the next update (product usage data is a tremendous cost saving benefit to the company)  But do you think they will reward your dutiful input to make the product better?  Of course, they will pat you on the head and say "good boy" and slowly bump the monthly subscription costs up as they begin to stratify the features available to you and placing your most necessary tools just a little more expensive for you to use.  You wont see a benefit from adobe unless you offer opinions like Nancy and Dave.  Those are the kind of opinions Adobe would pay good money for you to post in a seemingly organic way to most efficiently mislead the public and draw their attention away from the fact that you just gave up your own personal lightroom and all the liberty and privacy and ceded all power and control to adobe and their single point of access to control all your creative endeavors.

[Nancy OShea]

This discussion started 4 years ago when CS6 was still available for purchase on the old perpetual license model.  That ended in 2017.  If you need Photoshop with all the bells & whistles,  get a subscrption to the Creative Cloud.

Creative Cloud pricing and membership plans | Adobe Creative Cloud

If you need basic photo editing software, Photoshop Elements can be purchased alone or bundled with Premier Elements (video editing).  No subscription required.

Easy Photo Editing & Collage Maker | Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018

With respect to the false insinuation that Adobe pays me or any other product user to post propaganda in these  user-to-user forums, all I can say is rubbish.  I don't work for Adobe.  I am a free agent.  End of story.

[D Fosse]

nobodypanic  wrote

I do not like being held ransom by a subscription based system.

That hasn't changed. Perpetual licenses were only perpetual until they stopped working in a new OS, or new hardware, or you got a new camera, or you had to stay current to read incoming external files, or...

In practice you could perhaps get away with skipping one upgrade, but by the next one you'd be so sick of being out of the loop that you jumped on it.

[Terri_Stevens]

If I recall correctly Creative Suite 5.5 came out in 2011 so is 6 years old now. The web has changed a great deal in that time , surely as a web designer your productivity suffers by not having access to advanced features in Dreamweaver and Muse? For example CS5.5 won't allow responsive web design which is pretty much demanded by most corporate clients these days.

[fwhilton]

Ha ha...

@Terri

No disrespect... but DW is total trash as a web development tool.

I use to use it exclusively for the past 7 years.... but this last upgrade to a new code editor has finally made me fed up.

So many features have been stripped from DW (database, ftp etc etc)

And they use that awful code editor.... you can't even load 15+ files at once without DW freezing for 5 minutes.

And then when  you save, parts become missing.

It's ridiculous how bad DW had become.

I bought a REAL web dev software called phpED.... I can load 20+ web pages in 2 SECONDS!!!!

And it has real php begugging and code validation for html/css.

Oh.... and I don't need DW wizard to set me up for responsive.

Any real web dev doesn't use DW anymore.

WILL NEVER GO BACK to DW

[Terri_Stevens]

Everyone has there own particular favourite web editor . I must admit I don't use Dreamweaver much, as a designer I'm more suited to Muse, which I rate highly, but like any tool that auto-generates code it can be inefficient. If I use a development tool it tends to be Visual Studio as we largely do Asp.Net development, but it can be made to function quite nicely with Muse. There was a Microsoft web editor called Expression Web, which I think is now discontinued, but that was very good. Having said all that Dreamweaver still has a healthy userbase so Adobe must be getting something right!

[D Fosse]

Can you recall the numbers, Terri? I think it was on the order of a 50% increase in individual licenses since subscription was introduced. Clearly, the market in general loves this.

[fricotta]

Hi Trevor,

I certainly do not complain about paying mobile subscriptions or cable or even netflix. The big difference here, imho, is that I wish to buy a product, of course it will not evolve the same way as the CC version, but it would be my choice then... Unfortunately I have no options here, and I will not rent an app which was already made and finished.

In my end, Raw Therapee + GIMP is the way to go.

I really hope in the future they give the option to buy the app and charge for actual services like CC as a separate option.

[Nexahs1138]

Well then go with your non-professional apps, you won't get a job with them if that's what you're after.

Adobe have no intention of leaving the subscription platform as it is working better for them.

[Terri_Stevens]

Quite right, more people using the products and fewer cases of piracy. Why would Adobe now want to go back to perpetual licencing? I suspect the only way someone in the future will be able to actually own Adobe products is by rustling up a few billion dollars and buying Adobe Systems

[rodicab9906166]

I think that some of us use basic features that don't change that much from version to version (i.e. aren't professional graphic designers/photographers). And for that level of usage, I'd rather just pay the money and have the software. There are also months in which I may not use the software at all and in those months, the subscription feels wasteful.

Before you mention it, going in and canceling every month is also a pain, and takes time.

I realize why they did this (I'm not their core user) and why it's easier to maintain on their end, but I'm still grumpy about it.

[crutonz]

The real issue at this point is that adobe is not a reliable source for professionals anymore. They have been slowly whittling away specific programs that many people rely on to run their businesses.

They have already gotten ride of Speed Grade, without offering comparable tools integrated into Premier pro, and now they are getting rid of adobe Story.

This shows that adobe will always put their interests in a bottom line above providing reliable service to their user base.

If you have invested in good tools (cameras) that will last you for the next decade, then you don't need to constantly update your software.

Of course, this would be a different story if adobe could demonstrate that they are a reliable provider. It amazes me that they don't offer permanent versions of the programs they choose to discontinue.  

[kjonh2]

Well a phone plan and a tv plan, need 24/7 full companies to maintein there service running, tv service, only noobs pay for that, since you can have it all with a simple phone plan with internet...
The phone plan with internet is cheaper then the cheapest plan, for any adobe products, and you can do almost everything with it...
The car? you only pay a car for years if you are that kind of guy who wants to drive a BMW and not even have enough money for food... I got multiple cars in my life, and I never made a credit on any of them, and one more thing, since you buy the car, no more upgrades are donne from the manufactor, so there would never be a point to pay a montly plan...
Would be much better to buy the software and maybe pay for an upgrade if you really needed it, since the updates dont come dailly or even montly with most of the software they sell...
So paying montly to have a software, specially when you have free software and platforms that do the same thing or even better, is just for people who sleep on top of dollar bills and dont care about wasting money...

[AquaticSnipes]

I just stumbled across this thread, and I noticed a quick mention of ADBE stock and I am not sure if you were subtle trying to advocate for the stock or suggesting that investment in the stock could be used as a method of license purchase.  Would you mind clearing that up?

[Terri_Stevens]

that's very imaginative, but Adobe Stock is a library of photographic images that can be purchased for commercial applications. It is available as option when subscribing to Creative Cloud

Terri

[Semaphoric]

To get Adobe Stock, put some Adobe in a large pot of boiling water, an cook for at least one half hour. Remove the Adobe, and, voila, Adobe Stock

[Trevor.Dennis]

Why am I thinking of The Fast Show and its ongoing "I'll get me coat" sketch? 

[BC8225]

Amen

[Guest]

as I know, the software can only buy photoshop permanently with the old version, the new version, you have to pay an annual fee.