While all users received the Photoshop CS6 update adding Retina Display support, Adobe has added several new features to Photoshop CS6 for Creative Cloud users.
Several Photoshop users who bought CS6 at retail rather than the Creative Cloud subscription are rather upset about missing out on the new features. While I can understand the frustration, one of the big bullet points from Adobe when Creative Cloud launched was that it would be able to roll out new features faster to Creative Cloud users rather than way for full version releases as it previously has done.
Adobe Creative Cloud members will have access to application upgrades, including new CS point-product features, before they are launched as part of major CS updates, as well as inventive new products and services as they emerge. –Creative Cloud Announcement
Given what appears to be an initial success with Creative Cloud subscriptions, it looks like we’re in for more software subscriptions until retail boxes of Photoshop are a thing of the past. I’m not sure yet if this is a good or a bad thing. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a Creative Cloud subscriber and really have no bad things to say about the experience thus far. What are your thoughts on Creative Cloud and the differences between updates with the boxed version?
In addition to the new features in Photoshop, Adobe announced that Creative Cloud for teams is now available for entities needing to license multiple seats. The price is $70/mo per user and includes several upgrades over individual subscriptions, including a bump from 20GB to 100GB of cloud storage per user.
Check out the video below from Julieanne Kost showing off some of the new key features from Photoshop CS6 13.1:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E074UB1uaM&w=640&h=360]Here’s a quick rundown of the new features from the Photoshop Blog:
Smart Object support for Blur Gallery and Liquify: Enjoy the creative freedom to experience nondestructive editing with Blur Gallery and Liquify, now that both features offer Smart Object support. These effects can even be applied non-destructively to video layers.
Powerful CSS support for web design: Quickly export CSS code for text and objects, and also import color codes from HTML, CSS and SVG files to your color palette to help you design incredible websites.
Workflow improvements: Discover new user-inspired timesavers including Crop tool refinements, better naming of merged layers, the ability to quickly move a path anchor point using the spacebar and the option to see up to 100 items in your list of recently opened files. Easily create large images for signage, panoramas, and other large outputs by saving JPEGs of up to 65,000×65,000 pixels, more than twice the size previously supported. Ensure consistent type formatting across multiple documents by defining global styles, which are then available in any Photoshop document.
- Conditional Actions: Speed up image processing by creating Conditional Actions. These commands use logic to automatically choose between different Actions based on rules that you establish.
New 3D options (available for Photoshop CS6 Extended):
- Improved 3D effects: Save time and steps with improved live (OpenGL) previews of shadow effects as well as reflection roughness and refraction. Also, get more control over illumination by using a 32-bit color picker to create amazing glow effects.
- Image-based lighting enhancements: Get enhanced lighting when you illuminate your scenes using 32-bit HDR images as light sources or create other image-based lights (IBLs).
- Enhanced details for textures: Improve the lighting of bumps and textures on 3D objects by automatically generating a normal map.
More details on Creative Cloud for teams in Adobe’s FAQ.
Robert Garrett says
The subscription based product costs more than the recurring upgrade costs of the normal purchased software. How on earth could that be a good thing? What if your workload contracts and you can’t afford to pay the monthly charge? If you have the subscription, you’re out of business until you can afford to renew. With the normal model, you at least can continue to use the software.
The benefits of the subscription model are all in the direction of Adobe. How can that be a good thing?
Jared says
Good point. I’ve been on the fence about the subscription for a while.
Most people are overly-concerned with having the latest features (I’m one of them). But if a subscription is not paid (or if it runs out), you have NO SOFTWARE to use. If you buy and own the software, at a minimum you still have exactly the same software you paid for, always.
Stephen Cupp says
On Amazon.com the CS6 Master Collection is $2423.96. So at $50 a month it takes 49 months to recoup that cost. For someone that doesn’t own the suite at all the subscription makes a lot of sense. Now if you are someone that only needs Photoshop then the whole Creative Cloud doesn’t make much sense. That’s why they allow you to subscribe to just Photoshop for less.
Dan says
Well, for someone like me that already owns the Master collection for CS5.5, the upgrade cost is only $525 which is cheaper than $50/month adds up to. And if I ever don’t need the upgrade immediately or my finances don’t allow me to upgrade, I can still use the products. I’m scared to go on subscription at this point because if I ever could not upgrade immediately, I would not even be able to open existing projects not to mention create new ones.
Dan Kingcaid says
Price is one thing but no one seems to mention the possible interruption of workflow or down time that would occur if the internet went down. New Jersey, Long Island, Conn. and New York experienced weeks of internet disruption During the recent storm “Sandy”. Electricity went down therefore the internet went down. Even if you had a generator to power the computer there was still no internet and therefor would be no work. Using the boxed version there would be no interruption. Not good for business.
RobR says
And one big loss-the ability to choose View>Print Size. I use that daily to show clients an approximation of how an image might look printed at the size they want.