Why didn't I read before updating my iMac?

[Gena]

Hello there... Yes, I just read that "I am FU**ED" from the update to Catalina! Ohhhh my gosh, what to do now? I have had the CS5 forever and not sure what to do now?!?! Any suggestions? I can not believe that I do not have access to my CS5. Crying my eyes out, hating myself for doing the update!

[Brian]

There is good news and bad news. First the bad news...

Your CS5 won’t ever work again. Not even CS6. You are aware of this. 

Now for the good news...

 It’s not as bad as one might imagine. The latest version of Adobe Photoshop CC 2020 works with Catalina, and most of the bugs have been worked out, with each update making it better and more compatible. Fortunately, the Adobe PS CC plan is just $9.99 /month, plus applicable tax. For example, with my PA State Sales Tax, my subscription is $10.59 a month, which is on-par with other subscription services / media.

 Now at this point, people will complain that they do not like the idea of not “owning” Photoshop, they don’t want to spend the money, it’s too expensive, blah-blah-blah. You can thank two groups of people for this:

1. Software Pirates — I was curious one day and investigated just how many copies of PS were being downloaded illegally and by my personal opinion, the monetary loss was anywhere from 1 Million to 3 million per day, perhaps more. 

2. People that refuse to upgrade on a normal basis. In order for a company to remain viable, it needs a consistent source of income. People who held onto their older copies of PS did not help this fact.

“...but Brian! I bought Photoshop CS5 for $700 back in 2011, it’s really expensive and I can’t afford to upgrade!!“ 

Yes, it’s been almost 10 years since Photoshop CS5 was released. April 12, 2010 was the original release date. Since Apple decided to change the programming language at the last minute which the MacOS used in order for software to work, this delayed the Mac version by a year or so. Well, Steve Jobs was pissed at Adobe, which helped this happen but that’s a story for another thread.  

So let’s get back to the cost. I’m picking $700 because it was around $699 or so way-back-when. Adobe would release a major update every 2-3 years or so, for a smaller price of $299. So they wanted you to purchase PS for $699 and in about 2 years or so, upgrade it for $299. So over the course of 5 years, you’d spend about $1000. Then the cycle would repeat with the next major release, CS6. Then CS7, etc. 

The problem is, people didn’t upgrade. Spending $300 after paying $700 just a few years earlier didn’t make sense to the average person. So they held onto their copies of CS5 for years. Or CS4, CS3, etc. People forget, Photoshop is Professional-Grade software. It’s intent was to be used by Professionals and upgrade fees are just the “Costs of doing Business.” 

The “Consumer” version, Photoshop Elements, usually was less than $100, but it didn’t have all the features of the full version-so most people used Photoshop. Now cue all of the Cutesy Name Photography Businesses or Samantha Jane Photography’s who started to sell Actions & Plugins in the early 2000’s. Elements didn’t support Actions easily back then, so most people just used the full version of PS. 

The problem is, Photoshop is Professional Grade software, with a price-tag to match. It is expensive. Not everyone could afford that cost, so they turned to Pirating and installing illegal copies. So Adobe lost out on all that revenue. It got to a point where they had to make a decision; either increase the price for legit copies, close up-shop or switch to a subscription model to make things easily affordable for the masses. They chose the last option, which is now known as Adobe Photoshop Creative Cloud. 

How is it affordable? A period of 5 years was the model that Adobe based their models on. (Well, this is my guess and it makes for easy Math.)

Take 5 years, that’s 60 Months. So if you buy the main version of PS for $700 and then upgrade it for $300 in 2-3 years, that’s $1000. So $1000 divided by 60 is...

::: Drumroll Please :::

$17 a month.

Well, I’m rounding up, it’s $16.66 on a calculator. So in reality, Photoshop costs LESS today than if you “owned” a copy AND you get Lightroom along with your subscription. So in reality, $9.99 a month isn’t that bad. 

 

[Brian]

Here is a link to PS CC for $9.99 a month:

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/compare-plans.html

Make sure you sign up for the 9.99 plan and not the 19.99 plan. 
 

How is it different? You download the full version of PS CC to your computer to work locally. The ONLY difference is a Adobe Module that consistently “Phones Home” to the Adobe Mothership. If your subscription is current, Photoshop starts. If it isn’t or you aren’t logged in, PS doesn’t open. 

Hopefully, you have decent internet because PS CC is quite large to download. It will take a look at your CS5 and import all of your Actions and such. I will warn you, there are parts of the latest version of PS that have changed, so an Action or two might error out; this is usually due to things being in a different spot than they used to be in older versions of PS. 

Oh! One more thing...32-bit plug-ins won’t work with Catalina, so if you do use plug-ins, they might need to be upgraded as well. 

[Gena]

Hi Brian,

Thank you so much for responding to my question. Sorry for not coming back sooner to thank you...

My father passed away - lost his battle to cancer (FUCK CANCER) Hating life, to sad to care anymore!

Again thank you

[Brian]

#cancersucks. Sorry for your loss. Glad we got you sorted.