Adobe CC (Creative Cloud)

For many years I have been using Photoshop and Illustrator to do any creative things not involving a camera. Most of my design work is done in Illustrator, while Photoshop is used for the creation of loose web-elements like banners, header. The other uses for photoshop are varied: photo-merging, layer-based edits, cropping and more.

Apart from that, I occasionally use an application once or twice for specialized occasions. Some a bit more (InDesign, Audition, .. ), some never (Premiere, Flash, etc)

Both Photoshop and Illustrator received a nice mid-circle update with support for HiDPI screens a few months ago, but this time, it’s a whole new sort of update.

Dropping the boxed versions of software, and all the piracy associated with it, Adobe turns to the cloud. From now on, if you want to use Adobe products, you’ll have to pay a monthly (or yearly fee). In return, you will get continued updates to all applications in the Creative Cloud, as soon as they are available. With no more CS monikers to note the edition, every Adobe app will now be rebranded as CC.

“Creative Suite is dead, long live Creative Cloud!”

Many people quickly objected to this, claiming they rather pay once, and keep using it forever, because they ‘own’ it. A major mis-conception is that if you buy the boxed software, you own it. Nothing could be further from the truth. As soon as you purchase any software, you “rent” it for a one-time fee for a life-time use.

The announced pricing feels more than right, at just 49,99 USD a month if you pay for a year. While across the world, and even in the UK and Australia, the price is around that 50 USD marker, Europeans are out of luck, as the price is 61,49 EUR/m, calculating at a whopping 80 USD/m! According to Adobe this is due to the difference in local taxes.

But this is a review! So here it is:

We had the chance to test out several Creative Cloud (CC) applications.

Starting with Photoshop we are treated to a brand new load screen, and a major speed bump. To illustrate, if I attempted to merge a 30 part-image on my speedy MacBook Pro, it took quite a while to finish, and ate up a lot of valuable disk space. Using Photoshop CC it was noticeable faster. Other features include Adobe Camera Raw 8: Camera Shake Reduction; more-intelligent upsampling; the ability to edit rounded rectangles as well as select multiple paths, shapes, and vector masks all at once; improved 3D painting; expanded Smart Object support; extended Conditional Actions and a very cool Cloud Sync for settings.

For designers, one of the major updates is InDesign. Most Desktop Publishing applications feel like they are barely digitized version of an analog pre-press desk at an old printing company. Trust me on that one. InDesign CC has a much-needed upgraded to HiDPI screens, 64 bit support, and a brand new interface, fitting it in with the rest of CC. Last week I received an assignment to design something in InDesign. I dreaded doing this, as the old InDesign was not only slow, but also horribly un-clear because it lacked retina support. With the new CC version, I can’t wait to start!

In the end, most CC applications will receive major updates and new features.

The Good: