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Adobe Photoshop pricing policy

michaelab

michaelab

desafinado
This isn't about the fact that IMO the price is alltogether way too high, that's a different discussion. This is about the massive disparity between US and European pricing.

Gripe number one
On the US Adobe Store site the price for the Photoshop CS2 is $649, regardless of whether it's the shrinkwrapped or downloadable version - so downloaders are subsidising the cost of packaging, materials and distribution for those who buy boxed - nice one :mad:

Gripe number two
However, if you don't live in the US you can't use the US store, you have to use the European one. There the price of both versions (download and shrinkwrap) is €689 (about $820), so Europeans are paying a $170 premium just for being in Europe :mad: , there's no extra costs for them because you download it. And that's the VAT free price - if you add VAT it comes to €833.69 (in Portugal where VAT is 21%) - but we won't bring VAT into it as that's beyond Adobe's control. FWIW the UK prices are roughly equivalent.

Gripe number three
Those prices are for the "International English" version. If I wanted the Portuguese version it would only cost €419 (€506 inc VAT)...and it's only available shrink wrapped, not for download. So, the version that costs them more to make (translating everything), isn't the one anyone wants (even in Portugal) and has all the packaging and international distribution costs is the cheapest of all??? :mad:

Is it any wonder that people get pirate copies when they are clearly taking people for a ride? I looked into the prices since I was seriously thinking of buying a legal copy for the first time but with these kind of phuct up pricing policies it's "bye bye" adobe store and "hello" bit torrent. Not to mention the fact that I'd be loath to pay €833 for a PowerPC Mac version only to have to pay again when the Universal binary comes out. If I'm going to pay more for Photoshop than a decent D-SLR body I might as well wait until it runs on the right processor.

Michael.
 
Have you looked at the Gimp? It was born as an attempt to write a Photoshop clone - it isn't, but may have the functionality you need. If you need colour calibration for professional pre-press, it is probably not suitable. But for many sorts of image manipulation, it can be useful.

It is free, in both senses of the word.

See http://www.gimp.org/
 
Michael. I am not sure what the deal is with Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.

But I have Elements 4 and to be honest it has most of everything. The only thing its missing that I would miss is Curves Adjustment.

If you were in the future to consider a retail version, I would suggest you wait for the update as it will be universal. No doubt the little ****ers will charge people £300 to upgrade.
 
I'll have to give the Gimp another go. I didn't try it for long enough last time before deciding "it's not Photoshop". Having just browsed the (excellent) online manual it looks like it may well do everything I need.

The problems comes when you want to use 3rd party Photoshop plugins or actions (this is why Photoshop Elements is also a non-starter) but I'll see how I get on.

Michael.
 
Gary - I didn't realise that Elements doesn't have Curves, that's a showstopper for me. The other thing about Elements that I mentioned above is that many plugins and actions don't work with Elements.

I'm definitely not going to buy a copy until it's available as a universal binary and it's likely that Adobe won't do that until the next release of Photoshop (10.0) so forcing everyone to pay the upgrade - ****ers.

Michael.
 
Hey its why they own the industry. And now they have bought out Macromedia the arena got even smaller.

If they would just make the gimp into a proper OSX app I would be interested, I just cannot get on with the hideous interface.
 
Yea. Its alright but the interface is a design mess too much crap for not enough return.

Plus its obviously not in their interests to make it a photoshop killer so its more like a fancy Bridge than anything else.

I did not get on with it and have tried the latest beta and don't like that either.

Aperture although completely bolloxed and a big Apple lie has a lot more potential.
 
garyi said:
But I have Elements 4 and to be honest it has most of everything. The only thing its missing that I would miss is Curves Adjustment.
Click to expand...

igary.

curves adjustment is THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in photoshop. how on earth can you be without it?

michael.

they are complete sh*ts when it comes to pricing, not to mention crap like trying to force people to CS2 who already have CS by not offering raw conversion updates for newer cameras. my suggestion is to get a copy of "raw shooter essentials" (which is free and better than photoshop) for your RAW conversion and then simply an old version of PS for your post-conversion editing.

btw--a close friend informs me you can also try the mexican edition of photoshop, which is identical to the USA version but only costs around $10.

vuk.
 
It never fails to amaze me that software manufacturers cannot see beyond the end of their collective noses. Your average punter will either do without ot use a pirate copy when manufacturers charge silly prices.

Rod
 
Rod
I was writing the same when your post appeared. Well said. Its bloody tempting to go pirate when its so expensive - what do these companies expect when its zilch from P-P file sharers complete with unlock code (allegedly)
 
Michael,

This is about the massive disparity between US and European pricing.... However, if you don't live in the US you can't use the US store, you have to use the European one. There the price of both versions (download and shrinkwrap) is €689 (about $820), so Europeans are paying a $170 premium just for being in Europe
Click to expand...
I assume Adobe charges whatever they think they can get, but the price discrepancy you note is a worldwide phenomenon. It's simply not fair to compare U.S. prices with local ones because almost everything is cheaper in the U.S.

We recently moved back to Canada, after a five-year stay in Kentucky, and were rather shocked on our return to find prices consistently and significantly higher in Canada for just about every product or service. For instance, in the U.S. a 75-sheet packet of 4x6 Canon pro photo paper sells for $21 US, here it sells for $42 Cdn. Same for ink -- $12 US a cartridge in the U.S., $20 Cdn here. Ditto for film -- $6 US a roll in the States, $12 Cdn a roll here. Even after taking currency into account, the difference is big.

It may not be fair -- especially when you consider that U.S. incomes are generally higher and taxes lower than elsewhere -- but that's the way it is. Americans enjoy an unusually large consumer advantage.

Joe
 
Gary,
garyi said:
[...]If they would just make the gimp into a proper OSX app I would be interested, I just cannot get on with the hideous interface.
Click to expand...
there is hope...

Best,
Oliver
 
i tried gimp this morning and found the image "refresh" as i wrked the curve to be slow and tedious. in photoshop the changes in balance are almost instant and it's really the only way to work properly with something like curves, uness you're one of those ****ers who uses a colour-cal-theory formula to compute the values he wants beforehand.

i can't imagine anyone finding this acceptable. am i doing something wrong?

vuk.
 
I just had a little play with Gimp and whilst it appears to be fully featured the interface is pretty horrid. When using curves, as vuk said, it only refreshes when you stop dragging the curve and then terribly slowly. It's only useful if the image changes in "real time" and since curves is THE essential tool that pretty much writes Gimp off for me.

So...off to the trash can it goes.

Michael.
 
There's a (free) addon (look up "Earthbound Light") that adds curves to PSE3; don't know whether it works for PSE4 (I haven't upgraded because I have technical/business issues with Adobe).

I've never settled to The Gimp - seemed too prone to crash/lockup.

Assuming that you're starting with RAW files, I've found RawShooter Premium a good solution for all my adjustment/curves/sharpening/cropping needs (just drop the converted JPEG into a printing utility as a final step). Depends whether you attach any value to the cataloguing/effects capabilities of PSE (I don't). The free RawShooter Essentials would give a taster for the look/feel - but lacks much of the editing capability of RSP.

Something else to look at is SilkyPix - a slightly off-centre RAW processor from Japan - again there's a free limited version. I'd probably use the paid-for version in preference to RSP - but they only take PayPal payments internationally, so they don't get my business.

There are others, but I don't have personal experience.
 
Just been playing with Rawshooter essentials. Looks quite interesting compared with Adobe Camera Raw - the two levels of contrast are very useful for rendering very high dynamic range images.

Has anyone worked out what the the little rows of RGB squares left and right of the histogram do? They seem to light up sometimes apparantly according to where the sliders are, but I can't work out if they're clipping warnings or similar.

It also has a very sharpened look to the preview, a sort of glittery or crunchy look.
 
Rawshooter looks interesting....but it only runs on Windows and I'm transitioning all my photo work to Mac. On the PC I'm fine anyway since I have a functioning pirate copy of Photoshop CS2 for Windows.

Also, I don't shoot RAW with my Olympus E-10. I'm well aware of the benefits of RAW but the downsides (on the E-10) are too great:

- review of RAW images on the LCD only display at half the size of the screen. The E-10 LCD is small enough as it is so making the image even smaller makes it almost useless.
- CF write speed on the E-10 is poor so the bigger RAW files take far longer to write. Too long for me.
- when I first got the E-10 the RAW tools for it (including the Oly supplied ones and the PS plugin) were pretty basic and added a very cumbersome extra step into my workflow.

Being able to use RAW all the time is one of the main reasons I might upgrade from the E-10 one of these days.

Michael.
 
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