Adobe rolled out the new Creative Cloud (CC) service today. If you are a long-time Photoshop user, as I am, this new service eliminates a perpetual-use license for Photoshop. I purchased Adobe Creative Suite CS6 last year and I plan on using it for at least another year. If you have Photoshop CS5, you can still get the $199 upgrade price to a full version of Photoshop CS6 for a short time.
To do this, you need to go to Adobe’s website, as authorized resellers are not able to offer the upgrade pricing. However, Adobe has hidden the upgrade pricing (probably to entice you over to the CC product), so I made a quick video showing just how you can get CS6 at the upgrade price:
[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/nmg2K3ZlxUw” title=”Upgrading%20to%20Photoshop%20CS6″ modestbranding=”1″ autohide=”1″ fs=”1″]
The reason I’m sticking with CS6 (for now) is simple. I already paid for it. While I’m sure there are many nice things in Photoshop CC, I really don’t need them. I’m using Lightroom 5 (which I strongly recommend at $149 full / $79 upgrade) as a perpetual-use license. That gives me ACR 8.1 (also updated to work in Photoshop CS6). Frankly, the number of new features in Photoshop just doesn’t appeal to me right now. I use Photoshop for layer blending, textures, and smart objects for my Nik Collection plug-ins. Even at the introductory price, buying into the Creative Cloud model today means I’m stuck in it forever… stop paying and your software deactivates. I’ll reconsider this decision next year and save for now. Even though CS6 users get the first year of software for $19.99 per month, that’s $239 I can spend on other things this year. Hopefully, Adobe will offer different pricing plans in the future that better fit the needs of Photographers.
Thanks so much for this. I was having no luck finding the upgrade pricing for Photoshop CS6. I really don’t want to sign up for Creative Cloud. This gives me a viable alternative for at least a while now.
I just wanted to say thank you for sharing this with us and helping me upgrade to cs6 Photoshop. I was deathly afraid I had missed the boat and was stuck with using cs5 forever! I tried to purchase at Adobd but as you state it was hidden well, very well. Thank you, sir! I love working in Photoshop but I can’t afford to ever be a subscriber – Professionals will own the product no matter what but I believe that Adobe’s move will cost them a vast amount of customers.
Thanks for that info – very useful. I’ve had CS5 for a while and plan to do a lot more as I’ve been trying some stuff lately. I’ve managed to get to grips with a few things but still finding the selection tools and refine edges hard to work on (trying to extract my daughter’s dog from the background and put onto a plain block colour has nearly had me throwing my laptop out of the window – so far I’ve only just stamped my feet and groaned loudly). There are some great tutorials on YouTube but it’s finding a good one.
Anyone who can help another CS user is great and thanks for the info you have taken the time to share.