Photoshop CC subscription

[robirdman1]

I am looking at 'plans'. One is $9.99/month with 20G storage.

Another is $19.99/month for 100G storage.

I don't actually want any of my stuff stored in a web cloud.  I have almost 6T on an external hard drive.

Is storing your stuff on the cloud a necessity? I don't know how subscription works and am happy with CS6, but it won't read my Z7 files.

If you modify your raw files, add data, etc., make tiffs, are these stored on the web and if your subscription expires, you lose all your changes, ability to read the RAW files and metadata?

Or is new stuff still on your local computer, and nothing is lost, but you just can't read or modify new files?

[Title edited by moderator for clarity]

[Test Screen Name]

No, storing in the cloud is optional. From your description, the basic plan should be fine.

If your subscription expires the software stops running. So you lose your ability to open PSD files, unless you have other software that can do that. TIFFs remain perfectly usable. You lose your ability to read RAW files, unless you have some other software that can do that. And so on.

If the Z7 is a brand new camera, check whether it is compatible. It can take a few months for Adobe to buy the camera and do the research.

[robirdman1]

Thanks.  So if RAW files were read, modified by cropping, exposure, metadata added etc.  and subscription lapsed, they would not be viewed and info would disappear.  If one then resubscribed would the changes have been saved or would all need to be redone?

[Chuck Uebele · Accepted solution]

The corrections will still be attached to your raw files, even if your subscription lapses.

[John Waller]

If you're happy with CS6 and just want to open Raw files from your Nikon Z7 then you don't need to subscribe to any Cloud plans.

You can use the free Adobe DNG converter to convert your Raw files to DNG format. Then edit the DNG files (not the Raw files) in CS6. The Z7 is supported in version 11 (current version) of the DNG converter.

Digital Negative (DNG), Adobe DNG Converter | Adobe Photoshop CC

[robirdman1]

That's might be a solution, I should look into.  I guess the problem would be with these 45meg files all duplicated, the diminishing space on the 6T drive would go twice as fast. Thanks.

[robirdman1]

I downloaded the DNG convertor and this seemed like a great solution as it does a whole folder, rather than having to do each singly.  I was uncertain what would happen to the jpegs and .mov files in the folder, so I copied 3 raw and 1 each of the other 2 to a test folder and then ran the converter, to covert in the same folder.  It indicated that it converted just the 3 RAW, but there are no .dng in the folder, just the original 5. Did I miss something?

I wanted it to just use the present file names, so the new ones would be the same, only ending in dng instead of nef.  Was it necessary to change default 'document name' to something else?

It said the conversions took place and Z7 is listed as recognized so I don't know what's wrong.

[John Waller]

It indicated that it converted just the 3 RAW, but there are no .dng in the folder, just the original 5. Did I miss something?

No. You should have ended up with 3 DNG files after the conversion.

[robirdman1]

Do I need to extract as well as convert?

[John Waller]

Extract?

Full instructions:

Adobe Digital Negative Converter

[robirdman1]

My mistake was viewing in the ViewNX-i  where they don't appear at all, even as icons.  I see that they are in the same folder viewed in Bridge.

I do not have lossy compression selected but the files are smaller , for example 52.97meg down to 46.07meg which is about 87% the size of the original. To visually compare the 2, 1 of each of which is visible in each program,  I zoomed the same size dng in Bridge to compare the nef in ViewNX-i.  First side by side on 2 monitors, and the dng looked slightly less sharp and less contrasted - slightly washed out. I made sure that I hadn't any exposure changes on the ViewNX-i that would account for this.  I thought this could be due to the different monitors, so then I flipped back and forth on the same monitor, but still the differences show.  It was actually more noticeable on a less sharp image, where the top of the head of a hawk was a cleaner line.

The ViewNX-i software is extremely slow and tedious to use compared to Bridge, doesn't have as many filters, and so on, and is just a temporary means till I figure the best way forward. I need to try some comparisons and conversions of CS6 recognizable RAW files to see how they may differ.

[robirdman1]

The CS subscription will coexist with my CS6, not replace it?

[Test Screen Name]

robirdman1, Complicated question. Well, complicated answer. You mean a CC subscription. Is it to the same products, or do you have different CS6 products to the CC subscription? What operating system exactly?

[robirdman1]

I have Photoshop CS6 and interested in the subscription CC photoshop.

[Test Screen Name]

Ok. The complicated factor is that the CC subscription allows you to run CS6 as well. So it takes over licensing of CS6. This is no problem unless you decide to cancel the subscription. At that point you will find your CS6 no longer runs, and it seems to be a big or difficult job to get the system back to using the old CS6 license.

[robirdman1]

Well that is disturbing.  I went ahead and subscribed and the helpful agent installed it separately.  As I paid plenty for the various versions leading up to and including CS6, to have it stop working is just outrageous.

[Test Screen Name]

It will work fine unless or until you cancel. You can get it working again, with some work, but you should be aware of this side effect of cancelling your subscription.

[robirdman1]

This Bridge is incredibly slow.  To add keywords yesterday to a lot of files took hours instead of minutes.  Today I am trying to paste descriptions.  1st it takes so long to click on image and shift click another for them to all be highlighted.  Then for the box to be available to paste the name in, and then for the naming to take effect.  In the old Bridge, I could see at the bottom, the file numbers spinning by at a rapid rate.  With this, each one says generating thumbnails and then even when I think it is finally done, I go and look at one, and there is still no name and I have to repeat.  This last batch is only 39 selected.  This is exactly what I hate about forced updates.  Something that was working quickly and smoothly is replaced by something much worse, to gain a lot of bells and whistles that I'll never used.  And all because, they won't update the ability to view RAW files any further in CS6, which is all I wanted.

[robirdman1]

So now I find that my metadata extractor doesn't work with the CC Photoshop, only CS6.  A forum member was kind enough to create this for me, so that my categories such as species, subject, headline, date, location, etc could be extracted into a text file that I could then be imported into MSWorks database, modified and refined to then import into my MSAccess database, where I keep all the info from all my images.  This saved me from re-eintering all the image data of thousands of images, in all these fields by hand.  Now I'll see if any help is available for the for the undesired update, that has screwed my workflow as feared.