Adobe customer service is horrific!!! Need suggestion.

[Bryan Hix]

After 2 hours yesterday and 4 hours today, 7 transfers, and two disconnects (this is zero exaggeration), I have officially written Adobe off as a company uniterested in any kind of customer service with an obvious preference to export their customer service cost center overseas, to be handled by people who cannot problem solve without a computer-aided script. It is incredibly frustrating.:( Contrast that to Canon support which could be one of the best I have ever experienced.

That being said, I am sure that many of you who use CS4 and other versions of Photoshop are happy with them. I however will not support Adobe products anymore. I am looking for suggestions for other capable photo-editing software than some of you fellow BPN members are using and I am curious as to what your experience has been with their customer service should you ever need them.

Thanks.

-Bryan

[Jeff Donald]

You may be somewhat limited. If you use a Mac, there is Aperture (similar to Lightroom). Apple has pretty good customer service and if you live near an Apple Retail Store you can get in store training for a nominal cost.

There is also GIMP, which is cross platform, FREE, and offers almost no support. But did I mention that it's free?

There is also Corel Paint Shop Pro. I've not used it for years, but from what I hear from students their customer support is worse than Adobe's.

As an alternative to Adobe's support, which I agree should be much better, you might want to join NAPP. NAPP is an association dedicated to all things Photoshop. The dues are $99 a year and include some great discounts on gear, software, etc. They also have their own Help Desk, staffed by english speaking Americans. NAPP also offers some great online training resources that are included in your fees. It really is a great bargain. I have some students that buy it and literally pay for it just by getting free shipping on everything they order from B&H.

I'm not affiliated with NAPP in any manner.

[Dan Brown]

Picture Window Pro by Digital Light and Color is supposed to be good. I own it but have really not used it at all! Good luck.

[Bryan Hix]

Thanks Jeff. I actually belong to NAPP and it is very worth the money. I guess I didn't realize they actually have a helpdesk. I will check that out. It's similar the situation around Windows. There's just not another OS out there for PCs, so we just deal with Microsoft. Although their CS is still much better than Adobe. Maybe I am just stuck. I will maybe just resort to posting questions on various boards next time.

[Jeff Donald]

Here is the link to the Help Desk

http://www.photoshopuser.com/tech-support/

[Christopher C.M. Cooke]

They also have their own Help Desk, staffed by english speaking Americans.

What a pity, I have almost finished my "Introduction to Urdu" course as just about all help desks I visit are staffed by folk from the Subcontinent who have not obviously passed their course "Introduction to Elementary English":)

Adobe makes great (if over padded) products but charge prohibitively for them then provide substandard support and with some exceptions do not allow you to upgrade free ie CS3-CS4 and having paid almost $2000 AUD for CS3 and finding that the new Camera RAW files wont open in them sucks big time.

How I yearn for the time when I have a problem with my mobile phone system and the voice at the end of the line goes "G'day mate, whats the f*@k wrong mate and how can I be of bloody help" instead of "where are you calling from sir, Melbourne Australia, I am unaware of that location, is it close to Mumbai?":)

Wouldn't it be great to have a help desp desk in New Yoik staffed by folks that only talk "Jive" to service our Subcontinantal clients?