Discussion

The creative software industry has declared war on Adobe

bix6: Paywall.I assume everyone is tired of their subscription fee?I love Lightroom but it’s too expensive for my hobby use. I wish all the photo systems had better interoperability. I’m losing quite a bit as I migrate to Darktable.

corndoge: Try DxO Photolab if you have a mac

varispeed: They keep adding bloat instead of focusing on usability. Still can't get Illustrator to remember my print settings.

tayo42: All of the software is to expensive for hobbyists.How do people make the jump from hobby to pro without going broke paying for all of this software on their own? Is the art industry alittle more leniant about learning software on the job?

bix6: Better than Darktable?

alsetmusic: Paywall at the Verge? I have them in my RSS feeds and load articles most days and have never seen that. I definitely don't subscribe to their site. Either way, here's a link:https://archive.is/WCDgq

diath: If you're a hobbyist needing photo editing software, just use https://www.photopea.com/

fluidcruft: Yeah, theverge is subscription now.

bensyverson: For a long time, "pro" software was able to retain its price premium, even while consumer apps essentially all became free.But two things are happening: First, competitors are realizing pro software can be a "loss leader" for a different offer (see: Blackmagic Resolve, Canva's Affinity suite).Second, AI is making it possible to create open source alternatives that are very full-featured. Blender is a pre-AI example, but we're seeing an explosion of brand-new high-polish OSS apps this year.I'm not moving away from Lightroom yet, because I have a massive catalog containing 20+ years of photos. But new users coming into the ecosystem have far more options now. It's a tough time to charge a subscription for something that's getting actively commoditized.

vrighter: don't offend blender by comparing it to ai slop.

Mixtape: Their articles seem to load fine in my reader (Fluent) if I fetch them as they're published. Beyond that though, if I try to fetch the full content or open the article in my browser, I hit the paywall. It seems like either their paywall takes a few minutes to apply to their new articles or they deliberately make them accessible to RSS users fee-free.

Calavar: > we're seeing an explosion of brand-new high-polish OSS apps this yearDo you mind sharing a few examples?

Tanoc: I bought CS6 Suite back in 2012 and used it well into 2021. Before that I had a patchwork of CS3 programs from 2005 I was given the discs for second-hand. Nowadays I use Krita, ffmpeg, Blender, Zim Desktop Wiki, and Inkscape to replace Flash/Animator, Photoshop, Premier, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks. CS6 cost me $549 back in 2012 under a pretty generous student discount, but would've been $1,800 otherwise. That's $790 and $2,500 adjusted for inflation if you still trust the BLS' CPI calculations.If you buy Adobe CC Pro's all-in-one bundle you get one year at a time to use it, for almost the same price as it cost me to use CS6 Suite for nine. You can't even get secondhand instances of the software like I did as a youth with CS3. The only way to get that nowadays is through piracy, which predisposes users to piracy anyways because the pirates actually disable Adobe's broken cloud features that hinder your work. Meanwhile Blender, ffmpeg, Krita, ZIM, and Inkscape are all free but which I support with donations.We all saw this coming back in 2015 when CC first came out. It's just that the revolt was expected to happen sooner.

rpastuszak: FWIW it took me waaaaay less time to import 30k+ photos from a Lightroom catalog to Capture one than into a fresh Lightroom install.Granted it was a few years back, but we’re talking about minutes vs hours.

chromacity: Every time I see one of these HN threads, I am actually amazed with what Adobe was able to pull off. I'm not surprised that they could do the bait-and-switch of having pros used to their tools and then forcing them to move to a subscription model. In fact, for some businesses, a subscription may have some benefits. You were probably upgrading regularly anyway, and the only downside is that it's an expense you can't cut back on in a lean year.But there are so many hobbyists, including here HN, who just went with it and have given Adobe thousands of dollars over the past decade just to keep using Lightroom or Photoshop! It just boggles my mind. There was a brief period where you had no good alternatives - GIMP wasn't it - but for almost all hobby needs, you now have very good pay-once alternatives (e.g., Capture One instead of Lightroom). It's basically a monthly fee you pay for not having to think about the problem, and people are willing to pay it for many years.Makes me think I should be doing more bait-and-switch...

Tanoc: Most of us start off as pirates and then go legitimate once we're big enough to work with others. Everybody knows someone who has a cracked version of some ancient version of Corel Draw, but we all know getting contracted under a big company means they want us using the latest file type standards because they'll only have access to the newest version of the file's publishing program. I know some people who still animate in Flash MX and go through all of the trouble of porting it forward to Animator CC 2025. Thought with Adobe killing Animator last month maybe they'll end up with some even more convoluted upconversion chain to get it into Toonboom.

CWuestefeld: We all love to hate on Adobe. But as a photographer my primary software tool is Lightroom. And I continue to use it despite its $120/year price and less-than-stellar cataloging subsystem because its photo editing features (it's primary mission) still exceed the capabilities of its competitors.I don't see anyone else here talking about the huge strides that Adobe has taken in the past few years with their masking tools in particular. Adobe is still the leader at least in this segment because their tools are still the leaders functionally.If competitors want to leapfrog Adobe, they're going to have to continue to innovate past Adobe in functionality, not just price. After all, that price isn't really that onerous: their photographer's suite (Lightroom and Photoshop) are together only $120 year. That's not free, but it's not so much that I'm willing to make my job as a photographer harder or less effective because of it.

j45: acdsee is another one worth exploring.

Wistar: acdsee, at least a few years ago when I was using it for large volume jpg commercial work, is fast and often good enough. The trickier stuff went for a spin in Photoshop.

int32_64: Are there any projects focused on getting 'creative' software to work well on Linux? Valve solved Linux gaming but it seems tools like DAWs and video/photo editing is still terrible on Linux.

ArekDymalski: now , that's a name I haven't heard in... decades.

teamonkey: I don’t think it’s that surprising. People will pay for software that has better usability and better functionality.

nehal3m: http://archive.today/WCDgqIt’s so insidious to sell yearly subscriptions that you pay for monthly. I want to pay by the month precisely because I decide on a monthly basis whether I need a service. If you want out early with Adobe you have to cough up half of the remaining subscription time.For hobby photography do yourself a favor and skip this dark pattern peddler. I’ll pour one out for the pro’s.

vladvasiliu: > For hobby photography do yourself a favor and skip this dark pattern peddler.Meh. It depends on how you view your photography.I'm a Sunday photographer. Never made a dime from my work, and I don't look to. I just do it because I enjoy it. I particularly enjoy that I can use it as an excuse to move my ass away from my computer, walk around town to grab shots, etc.I like editing my photos, but the editing is not why I take photos. I don't want to spend a ridiculous amount of time to learn a new tool. It's a hobby, and the software is only an accessory to it. If I have to spend hours to learn a new tool in front of my computer, it defeats the purpose.I tried Darktable, and got okish results with it, but it's a pain to use. It doesn't have any serious noise reduction, and since I can't be bothered to lug around anything heavier than a m4/3 body with an f/4 lense, it's something I need, because I mainly shoot at night half the year.I've looked at alternatives like capture one, but unless you intend to not upgrade your software for at least 3-4 years, they're not cheaper, even though they're not subscription based. You also have to cough up all the money upfront. And you get no Photoshop, either, which I use in addition to LR.Now, I don't love lightroom. I have no idea wtf it lags when I open and close panels on a pretty hefty desktop. But boy, do I love the time I gain with "ai" masking, noise reduction and object removal.All in all, it's just not expensive enough to make it worth my while to change to a different software and also lose all my catalog history, just to cough up the same amount of cash in the end.Now, if someone came up with an actual equivalent that ran on Linux, so I didn't have to have a dedicated Windows box just for this, I'd line right up with my money ready.

armadyl: None exist, it's literally all slop.

Wistar: Photopea is very good. It is what I recommend to friends who just want an immediate solution.

achow: From someone who has been inside the system..Adobe has operated within its own bubble for decades. No other FAANG-type company showed interest in the creative space; Microsoft briefly attempted it with Expression Studio (its answer to Creative Suite), which was closed in 2012.This allowed Adobe to become somewhat insular, with an engineering, product, and design culture that, at times, feels out of sync with broader industry practices. It does not reflect the same product culture seen in high-performing startups or FAANG companies.This isn’t solely the fault of the executives. A leadership change - such as Shantanu Narayen stepping away - is unlikely to shift outcomes.With the rise of Generative AI, that bubble has effectively burst. Adobe now needs to adopt a stronger product mindset and operate with greater agility to compete with players like Canva, Midjourney to Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.The deeper challenge is cultural. Product thinking, speed, and competitive urgency are not yet deeply embedded across layers - line managers, engineers, designers and product managers. Infact Product Management is the worst that I have seen in product companies (and I have seen some).After all, it takes a village..

lousken: It will take a generation, but once students at school will be using something else than Adobe, it is over for them. Same with Microsoft

callamdelaney: Adobe is genuinely one of the shittiest companies on the planet.

II2II: If you can afford it, that is wonderful. For those who either cannot afford it or who don't need its features, then be happy that the competition is stepping up. They get the software they need. You get the software you need.I've never really understood why people insist that there can be only one or two products per software category, particularly when the category has a large enough customer base to support multiple products from multiple vendors.

j45: Haha, when I saw 30 years, I went to go read about it and its really impressive.

tempaccount5050: These threads remind me of the MS threads. Just like MS doesn't care about home users, Adobe doesnt care about hobbyists. Unless you're a professional graphic designer, you're probably using less than 1% of its capabilities and frankly have a pretty worthless opinion on it. "Well I'm a software dev and I use Lightroom so I kinda know what I'm talking about". No, you don't.

ur-whale: https://archive.ph/WCDgq

bensyverson: If you think anything created with the help of agentic coding is slop, you're in for a rough (checks watch) rest of your life

ktallett: Whether you need masking or such level of tools is dependent on how you approach photography. You can change your method of taking photos to remove such a need for editing.

nradov: How?

wongarsu: For regular, undiscounted prices the subscription prices were somewhat fair. Regular Photoshop CS5 was $700, or $1000 for the extended version. And $200 to upgrade. Now it's a $300/year subscription.But students really got shafted. You used to get 80-90% student discounts, and could keep using the same version for years. Including keeping the software when you were no longer a student

nradov: You're not wrong, but students often have to spend more than $300 per semester (not year) just on textbooks.