The Adobe Creative Cloud: Love it or Leave it

Posted on May 10, 2013

This week, there has been a lot of conversation, confusion and, let’s face it, anger in the photography community over Adobe’s plans to “move Photoshop to the cloud” as part of the rollout of its CC applications (formerly known as the Creative Suite). We wanted to let our customers know our thoughts on Adobe CC and how onOne Software products work with the Adobe CC apps.

What does the Photoshop CC announcement mean for me as an onOne customer?

No matter what your situation, we’ve got you covered. If you’re using any of the Perfect Photo Suite 7 applications today with Photoshop CS4 or higher, they will continue to work seamlessly in your workflow. Also, remember that you can always work with your photos in the Suite by itself, as a stand-alone application.

While Adobe hasn’t released Photoshop CC, we have been working with a pre-release version, and Perfect Photo Suite works fine with it. Perfect Photo Suite 7.5 — a free upgrade for Version 7 users that we announced last month — will be ready in the coming weeks and it will correctly install with Photoshop CC.

I’m a Lightroom user. What about me?

Perfect Photo Suite 7.1 works with the Lightroom 5 Public Beta today, and this should be the case when Adobe releases the final version of Lightroom 5 this summer. If for some reason it is not compatible with the final shipping version of Lightroom 5, we will release a free update at that time.

What is this “renting software” thing all about?

There have been lots of posts all over the Internet about Adobe’s CC plan, and whether it makes sense or not. We think it really comes down to who you are: If you’re a person who uses several Creative Suite apps (now CC) like Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, or Premiere in a production environment to make money, subscribing makes sense.

However, the vast majority of Photoshop users we talk to are neither professionals who earn their living with their photography nor are they using other Creative Suite apps. So, while Adobe has a reasonable $10 per month introductory plan for Photoshop CC (if you have Photoshop CS3 or higher), the fact remains that the moment you stop paying the monthly fee, Photoshop stops working. Meaning, you can only rent the current or future versions of Photoshop, or you switch to another software tool. The idea of renting the software is what has so many people upset; that and the fact that the introductory price will reportedly double to $20 per month after the first year.

You don’t have to go to the cloud, or rent your software. Lightroom will remain a non-subscription product for now, earlier versions of Photoshop will work for a while, and they’ll continue (for a while) to sell Photoshop CS6 as a downloadable product. An Adobe VP this week did say that the company would do its best to make sure that Photoshop CS6 will work with the next major OS updates from Microsoft or Apple.


Do I really need Photoshop?

Photoshop is a professional product with a variety of uses beyond photography. It’s used in Web design, video production, publishing and many other industries. Over the years, Adobe has added just as many features for those types of users as they have for photographers, and one of the messages that we’ve heard loud and clear from Photoshop users is that it has become unwieldy and hard to use.

That’s one of the reasons that Lightroom has become so popular — it’s a product designed for photographers. It doesn’t have all of the features of Photoshop, but it has most of the right ones that photographers need. And at onOne, we’ve worked hard to further our goal of being the perfect companion to Lightroom, with or without Photoshop. We want to fill in those gaps left by Lightroom, so that, if you’re a Lightroom user, you don’t feel you have to have Photoshop to do those things that add the right finishing touches to your photos.  

Not only does Perfect Photo Suite 7 currently offer a great effects engine and a layered workflow, we are continuing to add the features that all photographers want — without the cost and technical complexity of Photoshop. For example, a few months ago we enhanced our retouching capabilities with our Retouch brush and Clone Stamp tools. These were two very common features that previously could only be found in Photoshop. The upcoming Version 7.5 update will give you a cool new way to browse effects and files, and will also include improvements to our Perfect Brush. And we’re not going to stop there; it’s not going to surprise anyone that we’re working hard on the next great version of the Suite for later this year. Next week, in fact, we’ll be launching a new onOne Labs page with a look at some of the things we’re working on. Stay tuned for more details.

What is onOne Software’s position on all of this?

onOne’s position has been pretty clear and it’s not going to change: the Perfect Photo Suite will allow you to work where you want to and when you want to, whether that be in Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, or as a stand-alone application. We will never require you to rent your software, and you can rest assured that, when you buy onOne Software products, you own them forever.

We’d love to hear from you about this. We’re a small company, made up of photo enthusiasts just like you, and we want to make sure we’re doing the things you want. Tell us how we can continue to improve the Perfect Photo Suite. Whether Photoshop is part of your photography workflow or not moving forward, we want to make sure that you have the right software tools to make your photography extraordinary.

Thank you for your support.
Rick LePage
VP of Marketing
 

Perfect Photo Suite 7.1 Is Now Available!

Posted on February 15, 2013

We've just released Perfect Photo Suite 7.1—a new update to our award winning product lineup! We're continually working on new ways to offer better tools that can help make your image editing and post processing easier, faster and more fun. This new version includes brand new Red Eye reduction tools, a new Clone Brush, and major performance improvements.

This update to Suite 7.1 is a free download for all current Perfect Photo Suite 7 owners.

The new Red Eye Tool is available in both Perfect Portrait and Perfect Layers. With a simple click, you can minimize the red eyes that can ruin an otherwise perfect picture. Watch this training video to see how easy it is to fix this all too common problem.

A powerful Clone Brush is also now available. This essential retouching tool allows you to select parts of your image to seamlessly cover unwanted items. You can also use it to replicate parts of your image, which adds to your creative options

Perfect Photo Suite 7.1 also gives you the opportunity to help improve onOne Software's products by sharing anonymous data about how you use the software. No personal information will be collected and you will not be contacted. It's 100% opt-in. A dialog box will open when you install this new version or you can find the option Help Improve onOne Products under the Help menu. To learn more about how you can help improve onOne products, click here.

Perfect Photo Suite 7 - Now Available In 3 Versions!

Posted on December 5, 2012

We're really excited to announce that starting today, you can choose from three different versions of Perfect Photo Suite 7, making it easy to match it up with your own workflow needs and budget. The three versions are Perfect Photo Suite 7 Premium Edition, Lightroom & Aperture Edition, and Standard Edition.

The Premium Edition is the version of Perfect Photo Suite 7 that has been available since October 31, 2012. It offers photographers the greatest flexibility and seamless integration of Perfect Photo Suite 7 with their workflow of choice. The Premium Edition provides all of the functionality of the Lightroom & Aperture and Standard Editions—offering direct access to modules from Lightroom, Aperture, and as a standalone. It also works as a plug-in to Photoshop and Elements which allows users to create or refine layer masks, resize CMYK, Grayscale, or LAB color mode images, use a dedicated batch processing module in Perfect Resize, use modules as re-editable Smart Objects, incorporate within Photoshop actions, and get direct access to module presets in a dedicated onOne Panel.

The Lightroom & Aperture Edition of Perfect Photo Suite 7 is designed for the photographer who does not use Photoshop but uses Lightroom or Aperture as the hub of their photo management and editing workflows. It provides powerful image editing tools that do not exist in those products and gives them the ability to extend their image editing power, maximize their creativity, and solve the most common problems in photo editing.  With the Perfect Photo Suite 7, users can work with a variety of image format including RAW, JPG, PNG, and TIFF, create and edit multi-layered files, and access any of the Perfect Photo Suite 7 modules directly from Lightroom or Aperture. After adjustments are made, edited images may be saved as a .PSD, .TIF, .PNG, or .JPG right next to the original image in their Lightroom or Aperture library, providing true non-destructive editing. This edition of the Suite also works as a standalone application for quick touch ups and edits.

The Standard Edition allows usage of the entire Perfect Photo Suite 7 as a standalone application. This edition is ideal for those who don't shoot RAW or use Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Lightroom, or Apple Aperture but still want to enhance, stylize, and retouch their JPG images with a professional touch, and create and edit multi-layered files without Photoshop.

For more information and pricing details, please click here.