on 2014-02-01 9:50 Christine Aguila wrote
Hi Everyone:
Anyone using Adobe’s Creative Cloud? Any thoughts, recommendations, or
criticisms? Lastly, why kind of specs does your computer need to have for an
enjoyable user experience? Ram, storage, et al.
i have used Photoshop and Illustrator since the early 90s, and InDesign since
its public beta; i had a CC subscription when it launched; canceled it last May
when the intro price, $30/month, went up to $50; i doubt my situation is that
uncommon — i have a background and a small current sideline as a graphics
professional, so i have occasional uses for InDesign, Acrobat, Photoshop &
Illustrator, but not quite enough to justify $600/year; that could change (i do
a significant amount with QuarkXPress still, but my client supplies a license),
and it's nice to think i can jump back into InDesign when needed without
forking over "full price"; but by pricing me out, Adobe has caused me to use
other tools and gradually lose my chops with the Adobe apps … for example i do
text with markdown and sometimes Pages, and i find Pixelmator is great for
quick hack jobs on images (has layers, type, and a lot more, but is not nearly
as precise, nor do i trust its color)
when i did subscribe, i found i really disliked CC's required update tool on
the Mac; and from a professional standpoint there are serious concerns about no
recourse for version-specific bugs and incompatibilities — one can't retain
multiple versions of what the subscription supplies, as one could with the
traditional license, and Adobe historically has taken years to fix significant
bugs introduced by new versions
overall Adobe doesn't have my confidence; its professional apps have a
guaranteed market in the short term, but its long-term strategy seems to be
focused on the consumer, not pro, market; i regret that Adobe ever dominated
the market as it did, because that set us up for trouble when print publishing
stopped being a growth industry — for example, without Adobe's dominance i
think it might have felt pressure to gradate prices depending on the
subscribers' needs (student pricing is worth looking at, though)
i do think if you need just Photoshop and LR and you qualify, $10/month is a
pretty good price; LightRoom seems to have a growthful future both for pros and
consumers, so it may be insulated from the market-dominance side effects
as for hardware requirements, it depends on the type of documents you produce;
with InDesign, longer and/or more complex documents can slow things down a lot,
and benefit from faster machines; InDesign is not a lightweight application, i
found the CC version slowish with moderately complex documents (2 pages, but
hundreds of elements) on my quad-i7 laptop with 16GB RAM; the i5 vs i7 probably
makes less difference than the amount of RAM and the speed of your drives; i
understand newer iMacs use "desktop" versions of i5 & i7 CPUs, which differ
less in their performance than the "mobile" versions of the same; a large
display is also helpful, as InDesign is very palette-happy
--
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