My Adobe resignation. Anyone else packed it in with them?

[Stephen_H]

Well people, I have done it. I've cancelled my Adobe CC subscription. Here's the proof. Anyone else packed it in with them?

(It's a bit off topic, but I can't find a general/misc category for posting my own news.)

 

[Alfred]

7 minutes ago, Stephen_H said:

(It's a bit off topic, but I can't find a general/misc category for posting my own news.)

Cancelling an Adobe CC subscription is arguably “work” (but not too onerous, I hope). 

Cheers! 

 

[John Rostron]

I cancelled my Adobe CC subscription a while back. However, I do still use a legacy copy of PS 5 for editing one-bit images. I used to use it for scanning, but I now use Vuescan.

John

[douglasrthomson]

I'd love to but there's no alternative to After Effects for me. I've replaced about 70% of my Illustrator workflow with AD and about 50% of Photoshop with AP.

I'm slowly getting there.

 

 

[bor]

Until there is no replacement for InDesign, I can't afford to completely switch out of Adobe. Simply as that.

[Stephen_H]

InDesign has also been a sticking point, and Acrobat for its preflighting features, but I do have a legal copy of CS3 to get me through. All upgrades in those 2 apps have been for ebooks & digital platforms. I use them for print and neither have had any useful print features added in the last decade so I'm fine with old an copy.

(I'm experiencing the benefit of owning my software, rather than renting it)

[Stephen_H]

10 hours ago, douglasrthomson said:

I'd love to but there's no alternative to After Effects for me. I've replaced about 70% of my Illustrator workflow with AD and about 50% of Photoshop with AP.

I'm slowly getting there.

 

 

I hear you. I don't know it well enough to comment on whether Apple Motion or Blackmagic's Resolve Studio are decent replacements, but Affinity doesn't cater to the video market, so I can't expect you to jump ship due to Affinity's products.

That's the point of my post here, on the Affinity forums – I have cancelled because Affinity's tools have finally enabled me to make the jump.

[VectorVonDoom_NoMore]

AD's not even close to AI in terms of functionality and at this rate won't be for a long, long time, so no. AI might be showing its age in some areas but it's hard to think of anything it can't do. Of course it depends on your requirements, not just current ones. AI hasn't moved on that much since CS6, PS gets most of the new goodies, and you can still pick that up cheaply, so no subscription. 

[SrPx]

 

Quote

AD's not even close to AI

Used AI at companies, and I quite disagree with that statement.

[Mithferion]

I sincerely wish you the best in the journey that starts with this decision (same goes for everyone here in the forum).

Best regards!

[VectorVonDoom_NoMore]

9 hours ago, SrPx said:

You can disagree all you want but that's just a simple fact. Like I said it depends on your requirements and it obviously covers all of yours which is great but don't pretend they're feature comparable because they just aren't and aren't meant to be.

Used AI at companies, and I quite disagree with that statement.

 

[SrPx]

Which things do you miss more ?

[VectorVonDoom_NoMore]

It depends what I'm doing. Sometimes basic things like select same.... or transforms or offset path (don't think there's a workaround for negative offsets only positive), that I think should be in any vector app, all the way up to things like scripting.  If I'm doing styles then only being able to have one fx per type can often be limiting plus AD has fewer fx's. A recent one was wanting to roughen the edges of objects, easy in AI, you have to do it by hand in AD. Then there's things when I'm creating icons that I don't think you can do in AD, like snap to pixel after you have, for example, resized (only snaps as you're drawing) plus the artboards/export works better for me in AI for icons too. It's a long list but it just depends what I'm doing, sometimes I'm not missing anything at all or probably wouldn't be using it.

It's a bit sad how AD's progressing so slowly but they've decided on multiple apps and platforms which you can understand. So as it stands I mainly do stuff for fun in AD which is fine but AI isn't going anywhere.

 

[EZeemering]

At work I still have the CC suit. And that won't go anywhere soon since the whole market is still focused on Adobe. But at home it's really Affinity only, apart from Bridge and Camera Raw. 

[DuctTape]

Congrats! 

[SrPx]

12 hours ago, VectorVonDoom said:

It depends what I'm doing. Sometimes basic things like select same.... or transforms or offset path (don't think there's a workaround for negative offsets only positive), that I think should be in any vector app, all the way up to things like scripting.  If I'm doing styles then only being able to have one fx per type can often be limiting plus AD has fewer fx's. A recent one was wanting to roughen the edges of objects, easy in AI, you have to do it by hand in AD. Then there's things when I'm creating icons that I don't think you can do in AD, like snap to pixel after you have, for example, resized (only snaps as you're drawing) plus the artboards/export works better for me in AI for icons too. It's a long list but it just depends what I'm doing, sometimes I'm not missing anything at all or probably wouldn't be using it.

It's a bit sad how AD's progressing so slowly but they've decided on multiple apps and platforms which you can understand. So as it stands I mainly do stuff for fun in AD which is fine but AI isn't going anywhere.

 

I see...

I'm tho used to need to handle Inskcape, and pre 2013, several years before, during almost a decade, that tool was even harder (ie, needing to export and do weird editing in other tools as CMYK is not even supported!) to use/limited than it is now, and do all sort of complex stuff with it was way more limiting than AD ever could be. So, am used to do *very* complex workarounds for anything, and still getting the job done. This does not make the difference you accuse between AI and AD any smaller (I have not made such a detailed comparison yet, as I'm doing less vectors lately, and also because I got too used to only go for ultra primitive methods combined to do anything)  . I also got this habit of using only stuff every site would admit (ie, instead of flattening and simplifying all in export), and even (my work was used for many purposes) every client would have no probs opening it wherever,  in whatever weird old rare app from the 90s, or using in a programming library, etc, so I'd do all only with basic gradients, no FX, mere nodes stuff, etc. My workflow from those years was surely a tad different, and surely stupidly time consuming compared to yours. Also, you seem to work 100% or close with vector stuff, my case, at most would be a 20% of the workload, and most days I'd be 100% web coding at crazy speed, or doing some other design tasks, often a lot of raster. The focus on certain tasks, and even the type of work will vary wildly your perception. Is like in A. Photo. IMO, photographers might feel much more at home than digital painters and illustrators with it, but to be sincere, AP never aimed to be a painter, but a global image editor. To do a better comparison, maybe a photographer may feel more at home than a video game texturer. (but the latter has all the tools needed, I'm only meaning that for the photographer , there are many many professional specific features).

This is my POV about what you say : It's surely accurate what you say at certain levels, but if we consider professional all what brings food to the plate, what AD does would allow me to work at any company of the kind that I find in my region... Mostly as they are not companies which can have people solely working on vectors, and because their needs are more than covered by AD. (but this is not third world-ish, not even close)

IMO it is different to consider AD equal to AI  (which is most surely not), than saying that AD is not capable of pro work. I'd say is very much capable, and more than most even commercial alternatives I've used. But probably you can't feel as comfortable as you do with AI, specially if very used to its advantages/comfort/shorter workflows. But that is only my opinion.... (anyhow, if that's the case, the solution would be not to use AD and keep paying the CC subscription. I can totally avoid that..for ever, and still do very complex projects. At companies, I don't mind at all if I have to use the entire CC, not a prob, I know it well.. )

 

[VectorVonDoom_NoMore]

It's all down to what you can do with it, nothing to do with which you're more comfortable with, it's not different enough to make a difference to comfort. One person's complex project AD might cope with whereas another person's it might not. If it copes with all your pro work then that's good (I didn't say that no one can do pro work in it), nice app and cheap, but you're not everyone. Think we're going around in circles, so will stop there.

[SrPx]

Ok, sorry if I went a bit too redundant.

[douglasrthomson]

I remember illustrator '88 coming out. I've used it since then. I'm an illustrator fanboy... but I prefer using Affinity Designer. I find it much quicker to work with. For me, Designer is dynamic and illustrator is static.

I recently had a timeline project where I needed to recreate 34 company logos as vector artwork. All I had for reference were some bad photocopies and the wayback machine (archive.org). Affinity Designer was a lot quicker to use for the creation of the logos - however I still had to defer to illustrator when I hit a wall in AD. I created all 34 logos in AD and effectively copied and pasted from Illustrator when I couldn't achieve what I wanted in Designer. To be honest, I probably could have worked out all of my hiccups but I didn't have the time.

This seems to be my current workflow. I'll do what I can in Designer and use illustrator when I get a bit stuck. I hope to eventually leave illustrator behind. Shame. I still like illustrator but I dislike Adobe and hate the idea of being locked out of my artwork when I stop subscribing. I work professionally in design. I have a 20+ years archive of work which I'll be locked out of when I stop subscribing. I know I'll probably never need to open any of my archived projects - but it's just knowing that I can't access them if I stop subscribing that annoys me.

 

[Rocketdrive]

On 5/28/2018 at 10:20 PM, douglasrthomson said:

I'd love to but there's no alternative to After Effects for me. I've replaced about 70% of my Illustrator workflow with AD and about 50% of Photoshop with AP.

I'm slowly getting there.

 

 

Are You on a Mac? I have found Motion to be quite capable. Then there is the beast they call Fusion (Mac, PC, Linux), if You are into learning something new

[douglasrthomson]

Quote

Are You on a Mac? I have found Motion to be quite capable.

Thanks for you reply.

Yes, I have Motion and I like it. A lot of my After Effects workflow involves taking vector artwork (from Illustrator) and 'creating shapes from vector layer'. I can then do a point level animation with the vector artwork. Motion doesn't do this. Effectively, I have to redraw everything with Motion's vector tools - which is a waste of time as I already have the vector artwork.

There are a couple of export for Apple motion plugins ('Motionize' comes to mind) but they are a bit of a faff and a clunky work around. They are also illustrator plugins - meaning I need to keep illustrator.

After Effects lets me import vector artwork generated by Affinity Designer - exported as a .pdf - and then create a shapes layer from the artwork.

I'd love to use Motion more and if I could find a simple way around the importing and editing of vectors I could achieve pretty much everything I need in Motion. But it doesn't work. I have no idea why Apple hasn't implemented this.

I've looked a Fusion but it seems to be geared more towards visual effects rather than motion graphics. 

Affinity Motion. That's what I need!
 

[VectorWhiz]

I try to stay away from who's the best guitar player or who is the best soccer player type of discussions. I just appreciate the Affinity programs and am thrilled by their announced future features. I departed with the Adobe suit ever since they started their wretched subscription model and divorced with Corel after it had so many bugs that their programs became unreliable. I just hope Serif doesn't bother to implement a rigid annual upgrade sequence, but rather offers improvements when they're bug free. I think they'll have a hard time winning over the hardcore Adobe and Corel users that already have built an extensive oeuvre, but to those new in the graphic design business they will find AD and AP most excellent and affordable choices.

I recall being frustrated by the Corel apps crashing and already experimenting with Inkscape and GIMP when I accidentally ran into the Affinity programs; I could hardly believe my eyes when seeing the price at which they were sold and became even more surprised when fiddling about with the trial versions, being stunned at their functionality. To me the Serif policies are some kind of a gift from heaven and I think many struggling artists feel the same way.

[Przemysław]

My subscription expires in September, but I have decided to cancel it now. A***e gave me 3 last months for free to change my mind. I won't. :-) 

[Ros]

I am Adobe-free since december 2014. I keep Photoshop installed just for checking .psd files exported from AD, and for the ocasional warping. Once in a while I need to do basic video editing work (like adding a gradient map to a bunch of stock videos to make them homogenous and on-brand), but since Photoshop can handle that, I really don't need After Effects / Premiere.  

Back when Macromedia was a thing, I was 99% pro-Illustrator, mostly due to FreeHand's poor interface. I guess I couldn't wrap my head around the notion of creating things with a tool developed with such disdain for aesthetics. But then when Adobe acquired Macromedia, I was really mad at Adobe for letting go the opportunity to blend both vector apps in what could have been the best vector software ever. That feed my fear of being dependant to a huge monopolistic company that seem to believe it is ok to purchase something just in order to shutting it down. Both from a market view point and an ethics view point, it was bad news not only for FreeHand users, but for Illustrator users likewise, because it gave as a glimpse of the tyrant Adobe would become. Not just a tyrant, but a lazy one too.

Good soil for the Affinity seed to grow. I was so eager to escape that I gave Pixelmator several opportunities, with no success.

BTW, I feel the same way regarding Apple. A gorgeous jailhouse, but a jailhouse anyway. I'd love to see a rising competitor make Apple focus once again on the Mac, and that can only start to happen if they stop taking users and customer for granted.

[retrograde]

On 6/11/2018 at 9:43 AM, Ros said:

I am Adobe-free since december 2014. I keep Photoshop installed just for checking .psd files exported from AD, and for the ocasional warping. Once in a while I need to do basic video editing work (like adding a gradient map to a bunch of stock videos to make them homogenous and on-brand), but since Photoshop can handle that, I really don't need After Effects / Premiere.  

Back when Macromedia was a thing, I was 99% pro-Illustrator, mostly due to FreeHand's poor interface. I guess I couldn't wrap my head around the notion of creating things with a tool developed with such disdain for aesthetics. But then when Adobe acquired Macromedia, I was really mad at Adobe for letting go the opportunity to blend both vector apps in what could have been the best vector software ever. That feed my fear of being dependant to a huge monopolistic company that seem to believe it is ok to purchase something just in order to shutting it down. Both from a market view point and an ethics view point, it was bad news not only for FreeHand users, but for Illustrator users likewise, because it gave as a glimpse of the tyrant Adobe would become. Not just a tyrant, but a lazy one too.

Good soil for the Affinity seed to grow. I was so eager to escape that I gave Pixelmator several opportunities, with no success.

BTW, I feel the same way regarding Apple. A gorgeous jailhouse, but a jailhouse anyway. I'd love to see a rising competitor make Apple focus once again on the Mac, and that can only start to happen if they stop taking users and customer for granted.

Well said. Totally agree with the Apple bit as well. I guess everything successful will eventually kill itself...