I have multiple copies of Adobe's Creative Suite, reviewed the first version of the Creative Suite for Photo Techniques Magazine, own the full Macromedia Design Suite, taught Photoshop for ten years and last week was unable to do a simple upgrade to Photoshop 3 unless I upgraded EVERYTHING. There I was with my new cameras unable to open my Raw files unless I got the full upgrade to the Creative Suite 3. "Open Source Adobe"" has become a Kafkaesque monolith holding our files captive unless we upgrade . Adobe's purchase of Macromedia has forced it to begin enacting a business model that is as oprressive as the IRS. Too bad. Two days to countdown on a major photo shoot and i've got some moron telling me "we are going to have to "open a ticket...." "We" never got back to me....and a week later, I'm still waiting for the upgrade package to arrive." Good thing we live in a digital world!!!
In 2001, Adobe wanted my support in persuading Nikon to share the math behind RAW files with Adobe. When I pointed out that there was nothing to prevent Adobe from "becoming as proprietary as Nikon", they protested ..."We're Adobe and we're the good guys"!!! Bullshit then and bullshit now! Adobe has become as avaricious and monolithic in photography and design as Microsoft with Office. I fear the day when every photo looks like powerpoint and with Adobe's new PhotoExpress. , they soon will. Fortunately, they've revised their "rights policy" so they may still have some cred left in the Photographic world but mostly amongst the paid Evangelistas.
I have never seen a company get so far out of tune with it's customers since Kodak started it's electronic stock agency in the 90's Wow!!! Hey there Adobe...did you think we professional photographers would be grateful if you built a direct file sharing link in the software to the cheapest and worst of stock photography on the web?
While Adobe finally dropped the "stock agency" from the Creative Suite 3, the "new Adobe" is too big to handle small problem. Even a phone call to Julianne Kost's private cell phone resulted in silence. I'm considering going back to Capture and Quark!!!...now that's customer dissatisfaction!. According to their Lightroom Journal... "It really feels like the beta process never stopped ..." I agree Adobe should be supporting new camera formats instead of forcing upgrades. If you buy a new camera, say hello to the Sopranos from Adobe.... "You'll never get out!!"
For now, I'm on a search for some real Open Source software and think Adobe might want to rethink its relationship with it's customers.
