Adobe Planned Obsolescence

[Chuck S.]

Looks like we've reached another tipping point with Adobe: the latest version of ACR (4.6) is posted, and it will be the last update for the 4.x series. ACR 5 will be out soon, and its announcement contains the following message in fine, gray print:

Camera Raw 5 and later is not compatible with Photoshop CS3.

What this means is that if you're a CS3 user and you buy a brand new model camera that takes RAW images, you may have to upgrade to CS4 whether you wanted to or not - a $200 premium on your new camera. For LR2 users, the news is apparently better - ACR5 will be compatible with LR2 (but, I assume, not with LR1).

The question for this forum (maybe answered already but I couldn't find it): will ACR5 support PSE7? How about PSE6? PSE5?

Adobe is very good at continuing to get cash flow from its customers! In my case, they've hit a bit of a resistance point: I have LR2/CS3 and I'm not planning a camera upgrade in the foreseeable future. But when that 'gotta have' new model comes along, the collateral damage to my wallet must be considered.

[Goddess_of_Go]

When I moved to a Mac from a PC I discovered that Adobe had changed their policy about the version from which one may upgrade. The new rule is three versions back or you lose your chance. I found this shocking. As it turned out I bought Photoshop CS3 standard at half price for my Mac based on my Elements ownership without bothering to upgrade from my previous PC versions. (I wanted to keep them for the PC, at least for now.)

It used to be that you could upgrade from any previous version of Photoshop, but no more. My Creative Suite Academic version number 1 can be upgraded to a Creative Suite 4, but if I miss that boat, then I have to buy a full version at full price next time around. I also discovered that I have to get a full suite if I want to do this, and I no longer qualify for an academic discount.

So they aren't just getting us with obsolescence, they are also getting us by changing the rules. They can't just wait for us to want it enough, they have to make us upgrade by creating a window of opportunity we can't miss. That bothers me even more than obsolescence.

Terri

[TonyW]

Interesting - I'd missed that announcement. I guess ACR5 has localized adjustments as in LR2 so it's Photoshop catching up with Lightroom . Who knows about PSE6 and 7 although as they only use the more basic panels it's quite possible that ACR5 will work - in the same way that ACR4 works in PSE5,6,7 but not CS2.

What you would do with new cameras and old software I'm not sure. Used to be that they provided a DNG convertor for new cameras so you could convert to DNG and then open in an old version of ACR. Whether this will still be the case I don't know but one would hope so.

Tony