Adobe brings back photography Cloud program, cuts ownership requirements

 

 

When Adobe first announced the Photoshop Photography Program in September, the $10/month deal for a subscription to Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5 had two very big caveats. First, it was only running until the end of the year, and second, you had to own Photoshop CS3 or newer. A series of extensions has dealt with the first of those, and now Adobe will let anyone in on the deal, regardless if you've previously owned the software or not.

The newest iteration of the continually extending deal is set to be available until March 31 (though at this rate, they'll keep pushing it back indefinitely), and according to the FAQ, "this offer is available to anyone until March 31,2014. There are no previous product ownership requirements." The $9.99 pricing is only good for 12 months though, and there might be a price spike after that. Alongside Photoshop CC and Lightroom 5, you also get a Behance membership, and 20GB of online storage.

The previous CS3 ownership requirements were bizarre, and prevented many people who might have been nursing old versions of Photoshop—or even might never have owned the application—from coming on board with the program. Unfortunately, this still doesn't deal with the fundamental problem of essentially paying to rent out a program instead of buy it. I still have a copy of Photoshop 6 on an old laptop that still works, and unless you're the sort of person who upgrades their software every year, paying a monthly subscription fee is probably going to be more expensive than buying every couple of versions. Especially if the fee does spike after 12 months.

(via Reddit)