markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

I have the Adobe package for $10.65 a month. It consists of the Creative Cloud app, Photoshop 23' and Lightroom Classic. I've had it for years. Does your partner use all the apps of the Creative Cloud plan? I find my plan totally sufficient for all photography needs.
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/compare-plans.html
Mark

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

That price is for the full set of CC apps, much more than just Photoshop. If your partner is a graphic artist she may well use things like Illustrator or InDesign and maybe Dreamweaver, which sets you back more than $55/month if you get them individually, so the $54.99 price may stand. Clarification on this point might make our responses more useful.

Also, using 'Quote reply' rather than 'Reply' will show people which post you are replying to.

tomc601 Loc: Gilbert, AZ

It is the full version of Photoshop.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Yes!!
Mark

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

If you get the Photography Package (LrC, PS, Bridge) if will only cost you $9.88 per month. Price may have changed.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

If she needs the full Adobe suite, it is $55/month. If she runs a business, it is an expense.

If all she needs are the photo applications, the Adobe Photography Plan comes in two versions. They are the same, except for the amount of Adobe Cloud Storage you can use — 20 GB on the $9.99/month plan, or 1 TB on the 19.99/month plan.

If she is simply averse to subscriptions, for whatever irrational and unstudied reasons*, a simpler alternative might be Serif's suite of applications — Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher. Get all three for $165. A 30-day free trial is available on Serif's website.

*Most of the software world is moving to a subscription model. The days when you could spend $599 on a box containing a disc and manuals are over. You never really owned anything, anyway. You paid for a license to use the software until it didn't work, which was usually whenever the operating system became unsafe on the Internet, or your when the computer that that operating system required died, or whenever the software support was discontinued. Oh, you could spend $149 on an upgrade, but you didn't own that, either.

Adobe's Creative Cloud is designed to be used by professionals in a business setting. Of course, anyone can use it, but Adobe's primary customers are pros.

Businesses hated the old model. Accountants like predictability. A monthly fee is a predictable expense. If your "people lab" needs 12 seats of Photoshop for portrait retouchers, those 12 seats are probably part of a capital project. But when you upgrade, the 12 seats of upgrade license under the old plan are expenses. 12x$149 is a good chunk of change...

If your "people lab" needs 12 seats of Photoshop for portrait retouchers, and your retouchers are seasonal, they don't want to use five year old software. Since they work at another lab across town part of the year, and that lab uses the latest software, they feel disadvantaged or confused and insulted when they go back and forth.

Training is another big issue — Retraining 12 people to use a new software upgrade is very expensive, but on the subscription model, the pace of progress is gradual, so the learning curves for new features are gradual, too. A year goes by, and suddenly you realize you have learned all sorts of new features as they are made available, so you don't need to go back to school or take an update seminar.

My advice is to consider the costs of re-training to use a DIFFERENT platform. Affinity is great stuff, but if you are a long-time Adobe user, it may be annoying, confusing, and inefficient to learn a new system. Of course, if you're using an Adobe CC system bought long before the subscription era, you will have a learning curve anyway. But it may be less arduous and more understandable than a completely new system.

The new Macs are phenomenal, and the Adobe Photography Plan runs extremely well on them. If you have 64-bit plug-ins that require Intel processors, you can run the Adobe suite in Intel emulation mode (under Rosetta 2, Apple's emulator). Once the plug-ins are installed and registered, they usually work when you switch back to running the Apple Silicon-native Adobe applications.

BobHartung Loc: Bettendorf, IA

I would bet that there are far more photo enthusiasts using ACC than there are true professionals, but that is just a guess. Every photo hobbyist that I know uses the Creative Cloud.

rcarol

It is the full version. The $9.99 plan gets you Photoshop and Lightroom while the $59.99 plan gets you all of the apps Adobe has.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

I believe that is true BECAUSE of the subscription model. The Adobe photography package is a bargain (in my opinion) so it is attractive enough that amateurs can utilize it. Adobe can offer it at a reasonable price because that encourages more people to use it and also it smooths out the cash flow to the company. Adobe makes its money on volume and consistency rather than price.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

That was their intention, anyway. It seems to have worked. They increased their market share by making it affordable for the average Joe's and Jane's cash flow. That, in turn, improved their cash flow.

geagle1313

I want to thank all of you who answered my questions regarding discounts or alternatives for the Adobe Creative Cloud. And a special thank you for those of you who recommended the Photographers Version of Photoshop and Lightroom for $9.99 monthly. I was skeptical that the Photoshop version in this package would NOT be the Full Version as claimed by the UHH members. Therefore, I'm happy to confirm it is the FULL VERSION OF PHOTOSHOP that is offered as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud for $54.99 monthly. I addition, this version has many more capabilities than the CS5 version.

Dennis833 Loc: Australia

I publish books and calendars and switched from Adobe to Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer several years ago. I love the soft proofing in Photo and Designer is simply wonderful to use.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

So, what is going to happen? Spend $54.99 per month to use the exact same version of PhotoShop that could be obtained for $9.99 / month?

As has been noted, $54 get access to a wide suite of additional Adobe software, beyond PS. Those additional softwares were not in the CS5 package, so why would they be needed now?

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

The OP is not the end user so we don't really have the complete picture of what the end user needs. 'Graphic artist' describes a wide range of occupations so they may need those additional things. Or this thread might just alert the end user to the possibilities out there. As has been noted above, $55/month may be a lot for an amateur, but it could well be deductible for a business as a necessary expense.

I get the impression that Photoshop is all that is needed but that really needs confirmation from the end user.

Blurryeyed Loc: NC Mountains.

If she is a graphic designer she will want the CS package with Illustrator, Indesign, Acrobat as well as other programs.... If she is a professional then she should be able to adjust what she charges her customers to more than make up the annualized cost of the software licenses.