New to Photoshop - CS6 or Creative Cloud?

[Bob Serling]

I've been using Lightroom for about a year now and want to improve my post processing skills by learning Photoshop. I'd appreciate any advice on whether to purchase CS6 or subscribe to CC. Unfortunately, in order to get the photographer's discount for CC, you must own CS3, 4, 5 or 6, so there's no immediate price advantage to subscribing to CC for me.

Thanks!

Bob Serling

[arash_hazeghi]

Hi Bob,

I use CS6, it has everything you need. I don't like the concept of subscription-based CC, it will end up being more expensive especially if they jack up the fees which you will have to accept. Adobe cloud was recently hacked and personal info. stolen, don't like that. Plus you may need to re-activate whenever you upgrade your computer or if you switch between platforms. The only reason the get the newer versions of PS for photographers is ACR. At some point Adobe stops updating ACR for older versions, but if you use DPP you will never need ACR so you can stay with the same version of photoshop for a long time.

best

[Steve Kaluski]

I don't like the concept of subscription-based CC, it will end up being more expensive especially

Totally agree Arash, if I was doing what I originally did then having access to all of the products could be good, but I now only use LR & PS. Just remember Bob, you won't own it if you go CC and that could be a high price to pay in the long run!

[Bob Serling]

Thanks to both of you, I really appreciate the excellent advice.

Bob

[Don Lacy]

Hi Bob, Faced with the same choice I decided to go with CS6 for now and see how the CC works out for Adobe or if other alternatives become viable in the future . I was not really interested in joining the subscription service for the reasons mentioned above.

[Diane Miller]

I'm staying with CS6 as long as possible. I also use LR, which works seamlessly with PS, and it is still a program you "own." The same RAW processing engine as ACR is updated with new LR versions. As ACR evolves beyond CS6 you will get an incompatibility between it and CS6, but it only matters in terms of the use of ACR in CS6. There is no need to do that -- just go from RAW conversion in LR to PS CS6 and you have the best of both worlds.

Eventually CS6 won't be supported for new OSs but that's a while out. By then I'm hoping Adobe will extend some sort of reasonable price deal.

What really keeps me away from CC for now is that it has been out a year and has had no substantive improvements over CS6 -- just marketing bling. A "blur filter" that, from several reviews, is excessively complex and doesn't work well. A perspective tool that repackages what we've had for years. And the ability to take an image back into ACR and use its tools -- as a LR user I can do that by closing the image, and it appears back in the LR filmstrip where I can do anything I want with the Develop module, then open it again in PS. It's been flattened but you also have to work with a flattened composite layer with the CC implementation. If I want it as a top layer on the working image, as it will be in CC, I just open the original image again and drag the new one in as a layer. That's 2-3 extra mouse clicks for something I would probably never do anyway.

Give me some new tools and I might be interested.

[Dan Brown]

Nikon Capture NX2 and CS5/ACR are good enough for me (ignorance:e3?). I hate the idea of paying forever and being subjected to rate hikes!

BTW, if you want to reopen a file in ACR, you can originally open it as a smart object, then just double click at any time and you will be back in ACR. Then, open back into PS and all the SO layers are updated with your new changes.

[Don Nelson]

Bob
You might want to grab the free Onone v8 beta thats good for a few more days.


OnOne says they have enhanced V8 to be a complete editing platform( like CS6). They've enhanced it to have many (most? I haven't fully evaluated it) of the CS6 critical features and many seem to have similar look/feel. Advantages - you own the copy. All of the previous plugins to LR and CS6 continue to be supported. Some are quite useful (I also have complete sets of Nik and Topaz - there is some overlap but each has good features that augment CS6 and LR.

That being said, I continue to use CS6. I do not like the CC model.

At the very least, the OneOn v8 software should get some clients not wanting to do CC, and may cause Adobe to rethink their business model for photographers.

[Diane Miller]

Opening a file into PS as a smart object only lets you re-open the BG layer into ACR, even if you have made adjustment layers. As I understand it, the supposed new "feature" with CC is to be able to reopen the image with all the adjustments there -- but the huge caveat it that you can only do it on a composite (flattened) layer on top of your stack, which only saves a few steps over what you could do anyway in CS6 or before. (I don't remember when opening as a SO came in, but before CS6 I'm pretty sure.)

[Doug Brown]

I'm casting my vote for Photoshop CC. It's clearly the direction Adobe is going whether we like it or not. They've extended the $9.99 per month Photographer offer to anyone who signs up by Dec. 2, including people who don't own a qualifying version of PS. It's a great price.

[Dan Brown]

Opening a file into PS as a smart object only lets you re-open the BG layer into ACR, True, but if you have made a BG copy, this copy layer will also be updated with the edits made on the bg layer in ACR, for what it's worth.

[Jerry van Dijk]

The only reason the get the newer versions of PS for photographers is ACR. At some point Adobe stops updating ACR for older versions, but if you use DPP you will never need ACR so you can stay with the same version of photoshop for a long time.

Adobe has had a free DNG converter available for ages. You can use it to convert RAW files from the newest camera models to the Adobe DNG format, which functions exactly like the RAW format and which you can the open in older ACR versions that can not be updated to the newer camera models anymore. I've been using this for quite some time to be able to stick to my old ACR and CS version (which was no longer supported by Adobe) after switching to a newer camera. It's an extra step in your workflow, but at least you don't have to update when you buy a new camera. I hope they keep providing this free converter under the new CC regime so we can keep using ACR/CS6.

[arash_hazeghi]

Adobe has had a free DNG converter available for ages. You can use it to convert RAW files from the newest camera models to the Adobe DNG format, which functions exactly like the RAW format and which you can the open in older ACR versions that can not be updated to the newer camera models anymore. I've been using this for quite some time to be able to stick to my old ACR and CS version (which was no longer supported by Adobe) after switching to a newer camera. It's an extra step in your workflow, but at least you don't have to update when you buy a new camera. I hope they keep providing this free converter under the new CC regime so we can keep using ACR/CS6.


yes, but 1) is it cumbersome and time consume, plus it DOUBLES the storage space you need 2) you are stuck with old ACR engine which will not do well with newer cameras

[Jerry van Dijk]

yes, but 1) is it cumbersome and time consume, plus it DOUBLES the storage space you need 2) you are stuck with old ACR engine which will not do well with newer cameras
Very true. Your first point was the main reason for me to give up this workaround. Personally, I never noticed any trouble relating to the second point.

[Diane Miller]

How old an ACR version is should be a consideration, in that Process 2012, introduced with ACR 7 in PS CS6 and LR 4 is a very significant improvement in being able to extract good shadow and highlight detail, and in reducing artifacts in Clarity. It has capabilities that DPP can't match, for those shots in less than ideal lighting, and the superior noise reduction of DPP is something I have found to be much less significant with proper exposure and the use of Nik Dfine and/or Neat Image.

Using an up-to-date version of LR as the RAW converter allows one to use older versions of PS (or even PS Elements for some people) with less constraints, and its workflow is very well integrated with PS.

[Don Lacy]

I have to agree with Diane the only reason I upgraded to CS6 was for the improvement in ACR it is significantly better at controlling tonalities then older versions and has features that I would miss if I was using only DPP that speed up my workflow.

[Diane Miller]

Some good points have been covered here, but getting back to the original question -- for someone who didn't have a qualifying version of PS, the current offer of CC for $10/month (for some undisclosed time frame) would make sense, as Doug Brown pointed out above. I certainly wouldn't want to kick in $650 for CS6 at this point. Most of us who are using it already had it, from long-term upgrading. (I bought PS back at version 4 -- and not CS4.)

And CC will pair well with the LR Bob already has. The only real alternative would be PS Elements or a few other PS wannabes, but there is so much more power in the real thing.

And keep in mind, that offer does expire Dec 2.

Many people with a recent PS and LR4 or later (for the recent ACR) are choosing to wait and see.

[arash_hazeghi]

Very true. Your first point was the main reason for me to give up this workaround. Personally, I never noticed any trouble relating to the second point.


Depends on the camera model too. If you use modern Canon bodies such as the 1DX or 5D3 ACR rendering is quite poor IMO. The reason is Canon (and Nikon, and Fuji etc.) have propitiatory encoding for white balance and sensor color response. Adobe has to "guess" and then reverse engineer as they don't have formal agreements with camera makers. You can spend hours calibrating each file if you have time and patience but I rather spend my time shooting. The other thing I hate about ACR is coarse grain. when grain is coarse it will interfere with detail and removing it will remove detail too. For internet posting it's all good since output is small, but if you want to make fine art quality prints at large size, or send your files to demanding publishers it's a different story.


Any how, I think CS6 will get one or two more ACR updates before Adobe drops support.

[Bob Serling]

Wow, just looked at this forum and found all these excellent responses. Somehow I only received the first few. So thank you everyone for your input. I greatly appreciate it and decided to give CC a try. At just $10, it was too good to pass up.