I have been a loyal Adobe customer for over 15 years. I
started with Photoshop 3.0. Since I used both MAC and PC, I bought a copy of
each software: 3, 3.5, 4, 5, 5.5, 6 (a crappy version, I might add), 7, CS,
etc. I have paid these people a boatload of cash over the years. And my payback
for being a loyal customer was to be kicked in the face and cast aside.
A few years back, Photoshop 7 quit working on my PC. Adobe
said, gee, sorry, we are no longer supporting that version; you’ll have to buy a
newer version. Thank god automobile companies don’t follow the same upgrade
path:
“Oh, your 2009
Corvette stopped running? We are so sorry, we stopped supporting that version.
You will have to upgrade to a newer version and just throw away what you have
now. Yes, we know you paid $55,000 for it, but it’s no longer supported. Sorry.”
Anyway, I bought the newer version. About 2 years after that
purchase, my Dell desktop lost its mother board (bad capacitors), so I had to
replace it. I loaded PS CS3 on my new machine. Less than 90 days later, the
Solid State Drive (SSD) failed. Dell replaced the SSD. However, I had a problem:
Adobe limits Activation to two instances. I could not deactivate the software
due to hardware failures. So I called Adobe.
It was not a good experience.
After waiting an hour for online tech support, I had a rep. He
admonished me that my User’s Agreement only permits me to run the software on
two machines, one machine at a time. I told him I wasn’t trying to install it
on multiple machines—I just wanted to put it on ONE machine. I explained I had
experience hardware failures, etc.
He asked for my serial number. I gave it to him: MY PHOTOSHOP 3 SERIAL NUMBER WAS 1330-1615-0223-6773-3008-9278. He told
me that this was not a valid serial number. I told him that I must beg to
differ…it has installed my software each time. He asked if I could tell him
where I bought it. I said no, I wanted to buy CS5 and contacted them, but they
were out of business. He asked if I had the proof of purchase. I said, “For a
piece of software I bought over 3 years ago? No.”
I told him I could take a picture of my serial number with
my cell phone and send it to him (see images above). He said that did not prove it was valid! In
other words, I paid the full retail price; I cannot reactivate it, too bad for
me. As far as I am concerned, this is no different from theft. The only
difference is that Adobe doesn’t use a gun.
Photoshop has always been an expensive program. Thank god
the hardware cost has come down over the years, because the price of Photoshop
has more than doubled. Now, they are moving to a Cloud based model that will
cost you $50 a month to use the software.
I would advise every photographer to avoid patronizing this
company at all costs. Corel has a photo editing package, but it is not very
responsive. It is workable, but I think there are better choices. Aperture,
ChocoFlop, Seashore, and Pixelmator are a couple of Mac only options. Some PC choices
are PhotoPlus,Pixlr Editor, Inkscape, Xara, and Pixia. Here are some other
alternatives:
Splashup (formerly Fauxto) http://www.splashup.com/
http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/10-excellent-open-source-and-free-alternatives-to-photoshop/
A couple of photo editing programs were bundled with Epson and
other printers, and may still be found on the internet.
The last option is to use pirated software. A Google search
will lead you to may sources. I have been a vocal critic of pirating software
ever since I started using a computer. But if greedy software companies like
Adobe are going to steal from us, we might as well return the favor.
I know that I will NEVER pay for another Adobe product ever
again.
What are your thoughts? Let me know here.
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