Adobe stops selling CS6

Amended: Adobe stops selling for volume sellers, it seems. Sorry, I was somewhat shocked to see this message, but single licenses can still be purchased and downloaded through Adobe.

Today, Adobe announced that it was discontinuing sales of the CS6 version of its software. The text of their message reads:
Dear Adobe Customer,
At Adobe, we’ve always been steadfast in our commitment to providing you with state-of-the-art creative tools. That’s why, effective June 1, we’re making Adobe Creative Cloud your exclusive source for all future creative licensing. This means that Adobe Creative Suite 6 will be discontinued under our TLP and CLP licensing programs. All other Adobe products available under volume licensing, like Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Presenter, will be unaffected by this change.
Rest assured, we’ll work with you to help make the move to Creative Cloud smooth and without disruption to your team’s projects. If you prefer, you may still buy individual copies of CS6 on adobe.com; however, the apps will not have been updated since CS6 was released two years ago.

As with any change, you’re likely to have questions. For answers, contact us at 800-915-9424 or visit our resource page, which includes FAQs, a comparison of CS6 and Creative Cloud, and other useful information.

Thank you for your business, and we look forward to creating more great things together.

http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/wordpress/archives/2493

I think that may run a few Adobe users a bit wrong. Like me for instance. They sell a very expensive software and 6 months later come out with a new Version and do not even upgrade those who did purchase within the last year.

This is how I ended up here using Blender, although not as stable as some software at least I am not being teased with upgrades only after spending a considerable amount of money on it. I am not referring to 2+ years as they are. They were marketing this as the NEW improved only a year ago.

Then some exec with the car sales mentality of lease it forever… went ape shit bananas for that program. I skipped the Cin4d upgrade of 600 although it is integrated nicely with After Effects. No Thanks. What’s next 6 months and another 600 ?

When asked, I tell people to check out Blender, you can get a lot out of it for motion graphic work. I used to say After Effects but in reality it is only a 2D maybe 2.5D software… Very limiting unless you are wanting Photoshop on steroids. However CS5.5 had a cool 3d importer from P.S and they canned that for the foresight of Cin4d relationship.

Luckily, there’s a rising application known as Photoline that is quite promising and very cheap. The developer is even known to listen to consumer feedback so as to add functionality the user wants.

It may not be backed by the same amount of resources as Photoshop, but I hear it’s lightyears better than the GIMP and more focused than the Howler project.

http://www.pl32.com/

Well I am still using CS5.1 and am not planning to upgrade unless I absolutely have to.

Still it is pretty unnerving to see that Adobe apparently don’t have competition enough that rhey can just go through with neglecting customers and generally do whatever they want.

I’m a former Flash and Photoshop beta tester who’s seen firsthand how this company has been destroyed by only caring about the bottom line, and it sucks. The last beta I took part in (Flash CS6) was the worst of the bunch but not by much, their entire company over the last 3 years seems to have been overtaken by accountants.

That program doesn’t have any painting tools (based on the description of the features). Whole thing with Photoshop is not just ability to manipulate images, but also paint. And connect with many 3D apps.

This is inevitable. Forget about piracy, not to mention the days of producing hard copies of software apps are over. It’s too expensive. Electronic downloads are the norm these days. Now this cloud thing.

How many workers do you think these software companies employ? Hundreds? Where would it come from? It would come from selling new versions of the app.

That’s why these types of softwares should just be treated like one hit wonder businesses. If you’re in this business, get out of it as soon as the software becomes saturated. Man, how many more features do you need on a 2d photo editing app? Most of the users only use about 20-30 percent of the app’s features.

I’ve used Illustrator since the late '90s and truthfully, it’s core features have changed very little. I don’t get the appeal over CorelDraw or even Inkscape, which is getting my attention more and more. The only reason I don’t use something else is because my company considers Illustrator the standard and we’re locked in to it due to the sheer amount of files that we have.

Some observations are below… the point being that I can’t see buying in to their Creative Cloud:
• Adobe adds a feature to Illy once a year and says, “Look how innovative we are!”, but other software has had that feature for a long time. Case in point – They just added the touch type tool, which CorelDraw has had since 1998.
• They still don’t have live spell checking AFAIK.
• You have to use a different tool every time you want to add a node, delete a node, change the node to smooth or corner, etc. I know you can use the ribbon at the top, but that’s wildly inconvenient. A whole section of tools to manipulate nodes?
• No shortcut commands to align objects, and you can’t create a keyboard shortcut for this.

I could go on but you get the point. Adobe is behind the technological curve IMO, but unfortunately they don’t have much competition. They know this, so they don’t have to be innovative. Mark my words though, this will come back to bite them one day.

Well, although probably not as sophisticated as Photoshop, you can paint in Photoline too. Probably more interesting - Photoline offers a link/bridge feature, so it is possible to send a layer to Krita for example, use Kritas painting tools and then send that back.

If I would have the chance I still would rather use Freehand and not Illustrator.

AI got usable for me only after they included many features from FH but they still produce a terrible software to be honest.

It is really sad to see that other vector apps are either toys (inksapce iDraw) because they lack many curtail tools to really compete or are discontinued (Freehand) or only on the Win side (Corel).

Man my student time was so rich with software alternatives …

@Motorsep: Photoline’s latest betas introduced a very nice smooth draw option, comparable to Gimp and Krita. The drawing feel is very nice now.

Painting is comparable to Photoshop before the brush engine revamp - which is okay. It’s compatible with Photoshop brush libraries, and you can load those up.

In terms of image editing Photoline is excellent (full 8/16.32bpc RGB, CMYK, Lab), and on par with Photoshop, even arguably an improvement over Photoshop, and in some other areas a little behind. The svg import and export is really good. There are no limits to the number of layers you can have or the size of the file (unlike Photoshop which has a 8000 layer limit, and limits to the dimensions). The layer mask system in Photoline blows Photoshop out of the water. External file layers are also possible now. And the vector tools behave like real vectors, unlike the ones in Photoshop.

The layer system is extremely liberating compared to Photoshop: any layer can be set to any bit depth and colour mode. Even layer masks (although masks effectively work up to 16bpc). Can you imagine the freedom? No more switching between image modes if you want to work in Lab mode, or CMYK - merely switch the layer to a different type! And the curves work in Lab, RGB, HSV, or HIS on layer without the need to switch the actual image mode of the layer! WOW! After experiencing the freedom of Photoline’s layers, Photoshop feels positively outdated and awkward.

One of the best features of Photoline are the virtual layers: instanced layers based on any type of other layer, including layer masks and groups! They update in realtime (opening up mirror/symmetrical painting, for example), and can be recycled across pages (yes, Photoline supports pages unlike Photoshop). It means layer masks can be reused in other layers, making it possible to do almost entirely non-destructive texture production. Aside from that Photoline has full adjustment layers and layer effects support - even going so far as converting Photoshop’s most common adjustment layers and the layer effects, preserving the editability. (Photoline has more layer effect options than Photoshop, btw).

In some respects Photoline is far ahead of Photoshop. In some it lags behind somewhat (no spot channel support, no scripting). I completely switched to Photoline, and use the app link to hook up and work with Krita for more advanced painting (Krita’s painting is an improvement over Photoshop anyway). The nice thing about the PL-Krita combo is that both applications feel very similar, especially in how the layer system works.

@Cekuhnen: Yes, I always preferred Freehand over Illustrator myself. Did you know Adobe issues a general serial for users, so in principle anyone can now download and use Freehand? Not quite legit - comparable to the CS2 situation.

I still use CreatureHouse Expression 3.3 for Windows - like Painter for vectors. Btw, Microsoft Expression, which is based on Expression with a more modern GUI bolted on top, can be downloaded for free - it’s still a capable vector illustration app:
http://www.microsoft.com/expression/eng/

I jumped on the Adobe CC wagon the moment it came out and have been overjoyed ever since. I could not afford the Master collection. $2,700 was too much. But I can afford $49.00 a month! Now I get all the updates, and my overall cost is much less when you consider it will take 54 months for my payment to equal what I would have paid up front.

Plus I get all the updates for free.

The mindset is flawed. Ton expressed it accurately - adobe is retreating behind an iron firewall in the sky and pulling up the ladder after them. Ostensibly to protect photoshop from piracy cause they lose so much revenue to piracy. Really?

people who acquire a pirated copy, most do nothing with it. 98-99 per cent " play with it". Use it for photo chopping friends. Stuff like that. However, 1-2 per cent are more driven artistically but challenged budget wise. They’ll “work” with photoshop. Learn its capabilities. And later if they retain the artistic fervor most will purchase photoshop or something equivalent to fill their tool box. For them the pirated copies were the best demos anyone could provide. I’m one of those. I’ve since purchased three versions of photoshop.

So Adobe is actually limiting reach and exposure to its market, aside from the professional sector. And honestly pirated copies only last so long. Adobe was/is very agressive, like autodesk in hunting down illegal copies. Sooner or later you get pinged and they’ll land a fish. My system would lock up at those times and even crash until I cleared the offending software . A little vindictive retribution. So in my experience Adobe was very effective at policing its software.

But the economy is not robust and competition for the lower tiers of the artistic design and production market is getting fiercer. Maya recognized it with their Maya LT, catered to “Indie developers.” How many software engines have abruptly thrown open their doors providing nearly open access? Unreal 4, cry engine 3, unity. They 're recognizing the huge plethora of serious hobbyists and small start up groups working Design and CGI. Programming and 3D work is no longer an arcane science. There are scads if computer savvy people. But while talent is now abundant money isn’t.

In fact the very idea of a more affordable subscription system is recognition to that very point. ?But Adobe can put away the snow shovels for all the money they anticipated shoveling in, by shifting to the cloud model. Attempting to entice the bottom tier of the market into a subscription. Cause a subscription, even at moderately affordable levels , implies real commitment

The masses instead will drift after photo line, Gimp, or Krita, or Corel Draw etc. the result being Adobe will end up limiting its marketing reach in a growing segment.

But there appears to be a siege mentality with this business model. What is paramount now to Adobe is “protecting the Crown Jewels Under the hood”. Not clients. Things will likely transition towards a " them versus us" attitude. Cause With a siege mentality there is a natural limiting of communications. Because everything must point to defending the guts of the software in the sky.
Not the most inviting climate for collaborating with artists.

Moreover, dumping the physical copy of the program eliminates jobs at various levels of distribution. Probably a pretty healthy slice of the Adobe work force.

so that’s my two cents. I believe Adobe won’t gain any revenue and in fact I think they’ll actually spur competition in order to break the garrison mentality

Photoshop was once really good but in the recent years hardly added anything really meaningful nor innovated the design workflow.

But like with Word everybody uses it so everybody will use it - sad story.

I am really happy with my Pixelmator - the only thing for my workflow I feel PS is amazing at are color transformation CCM and some of the heal brushes etc. The rest meh …

But I think complain here or there nothing will change the will remain being the most used software.

Just more “creative cloud” bullshit from Adobe. There was a time when their products were unmatched by anyone else, but that’s not the case anymore. Since i started using Krita i’ve forgotten about anything else when it comes to 2D raster image editors, and there’s plenty of other programs to choose from, both FOSS and proprietary like Photoline, Sai, MangaStudio, ArtRage, GIMP, Paint.NET, Sketchbook Pro etc…

Though I deplore the business strategy, I’m still tied to using PS. Due to a couple features which are very effective for my workflow.

  • style of layer management
  • smart sharpen
  • Gaussian blur
  • noise
    • high pass hard light
    • Overlay mode

I also like the Nvidia Normal Map plug-in
And Last on the hit parade - Liquify

So, any recommendations as to which alternate program might have comparable features?

In real life work you need some kind of standard so you can distribute files to other people. Some open source projects support .doc, but they are even suckier than Word! I’ve done a lot of work with Word, Excel and Powerpoint. They get lot of negative comments, but they get the job done. It’s not that Word can’t be better, but we don’t really have anything better that could become a standard.

It’s the same story with Blender. Some people wonder why Blender isn’t used by everyone. They live in a fantasy world.

Krice, document format is true also sharing common standards.

When I worked with Freehand Photoshop and Xpress the problem was always color management.
Today Illustrator finally has features I worked with in Freehand when I was a student and InDesign got pretty well.
Photoshop has some cool effects and options but in many regards other applications caught up.
Only the heal brushes I think is what sets PSD really apart.

For sketching there are better apps and Photoline etc are pretty advanced in better in some areas.

Regarding Blender I think as much as we love it we have to be honest here about it as well.

Blender does have an outdated and slow scan line/raytrace renderer and an incomplete Pathtracer.
Nothing can compete here with other engines when it comes to speed and depth of functions.

Regarding modeling Blender is pretty good now but still lacks many what I would consider power modeling tools.

What makes Blender to me unique and that’s why I did not switch to Modo is the use of Modifiers.

I guess it really depends on what you need and I think for many who also use Blender it offers the tools
they need. But for many others Blender cannot yet deliver.

Plus then you also have the question of pre-existing software workflows and pipelines which is hard to
fit into anyway.

Photoline fits all of that, except the smart sharpen - but that is basically a combination of of filters/mask, so an action could take care of that.