Photo editing software

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Mal Paso said:
It is a good value but you need a very good internet connection. When I was on Hughes Satellite I had Adobe SHUT DOWN my use of Photoshop for 3 separate weekends which is why I Dumped Adobe. That won't happen with Affinity.

Adobe Customer Service is Nonexistent if you have problems.
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Not my point Mal and the OP may not share the your problems. Is this just like your Nikon beef? Maybe time to try Starlink. Here is the policy of Adobe on validating the license.
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@Cree Native: if you don't understand what is offered as a whole package it's hard to make a decision on what's good or bad. If you want free or a one time buy, that's could be a good choice. Consider though how easy is the program to learn. These Kost videos are free and you can teach yourself some pretty advanced features fairly easily. Any of the programs requires commitment to learn and the teaching resources for Adobe are vast. NOTE - Affinity seems to be more of a Photoshop competitor. That is vastly different than Lightroom which is much easier to use and manage lots of images that don't required advanced techniques. You still get both PS and LR for the same price.
 
Factual information cut and pasted from the Adobe website:

You must connect to the Internet when you want to install Adobe Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator. Once the apps are installed on your computer, you don’t need an ongoing Internet connection to use the apps.

You can use the apps in offline mode with a valid software license for a limited period. The apps attempt to validate your software license every 30 days. You receive a reminder to reconnect to the Internet to validate your license.
 
I will add that I have found Adobe customer service to be very good. I go in via the chat bottom right of the support page. If the automated response doesn't help you get a person, if they can't help they kick it up a level, all the way up to taking over your machine remotely if you give permission.
 
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Hooligans Imagery said:
Not my point Mal and the OP may not share the your problems. Is this just like your Nikon beef? Maybe time to try Starlink. Here is the policy of Adobe on validating the license.
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@Cree Native: if you don't understand what is offered as a whole package it's hard to make a decision on what's good or bad. If you want free or a one time buy, that's could be a good choice. Consider though how easy is the program to learn. These Kost videos are free and you can teach yourself some pretty advanced features fairly easily. Any of the programs requires commitment to learn and the teaching resources for Adobe are vast. NOTE - Affinity seems to be more of a Photoshop competitor. That is vastly different than Lightroom which is much easier to use and manage lots of images that don't required advanced techniques. You still get both PS and LR for the same price.
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Read carefully, Hughes was Past Tense. I have been on Starlink over a year now.

My experience with Adobe was a couple years ago and it sounds like they have changed but they Did Shut Down Stand Alone Photoshop Running on My Computer 3 times. There was No Customer Support on weekends which is when they did this and I could not reach customer support the following week at all.

My cardiac meds under performed this week, my heart rate and bp spiked, my cardiologist was unavailable and I wound up back in emergency so I might be sensitive about customer support. I have had no other drugs including alcohol and caffeine for over a month so you are getting the real alpha hotel.

I will probably get Pshop and LR this month but will keep Affinity Photo 2 as backup because having just Adobe would be like bringing only one camera to a photo shoot.
 
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Mal Paso said:
Yes and they run regular Security Checks. THEY CAN SHUT DOWN PHOTOSHOP AND LIGHTROOM ON YOUR COMPUTER, AT WILL, AND YOU CAN NOT STOP IT! Every time you open an adobe product it tries to find a connection and check with adobe for registration. If you turn off internet the program will run for a while but it keeps looking for that connection. Any question and the program shuts down.
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I've used LrC for hours in a remote location without internet. I have no problem with security checks. In 12 years of using Adobe products I've never run into the issue you pose.
 
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bleirer said:
Factual information cut and pasted from the Adobe website:

You must connect to the Internet when you want to install Adobe Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator. Once the apps are installed on your computer, you don’t need an ongoing Internet connection to use the apps.

You can use the apps in offline mode with a valid software license for a limited period. The apps attempt to validate your software license every 30 days. You receive a reminder to reconnect to the Internet to validate your license.
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The every 30 days thing is why I always, before each trip, sign off and on my laptop. It's not a problem at all for me. They are not controlling my software, simply checking to see if all people who are using the software should be using it. Although a "limited period" is not defined I have never had a problem with the software even after being gone for almost a month.
 
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bleirer said:
I will add that I have found Adobe customer service to be very good. I go in via the chat bottom right of the support page. If the automated response doesn't help you get a person, if they can't help they kick it up a level, all the way up to taking over your machine remotely if you give permission.
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I was once on the phone with Adobe, this was many years ago, for an hour trying to correct a stupid thing I did that messed up the location of the catalog. He was great and together we fixed the problem.
 
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I started using Photoshop at version 2 or 3. I had to spend $1000 for a second 16 MB of ram so I could open a photo on a 386 or 486 computer. Digital cameras were awful and I scanned 4x5 transparencies with Microtec E6 scanner, gorgeous files! I used my first digital camera about that time, a Kodak built on a Nikon body that was about 256K. There was No internal storage, the camera was on a tethered to a Mac. This was before the Nikon DC1 and the results were so bad the project was scrapped and the catalogue was shot on film. I never had one problem with Photoshop until the incidents where Adobe shut down a paid for program during one of their security checks.
 
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Ah, I remember back in the day when I had the photoshop plan. Had some problems with photoshop (as it turned out, they intruded some bugs and it took a while for them to fix) and the customer service was useless and pathetic. Then they had their data breach and leaked all my info. Of course that is nothing new now. Only prenatal children have a chance of not having their data leaked beyond an upcoming announcement.

In any case the experience soured me on ever getting help and I am still annoyed at the lack of ability to offload with a permanent license after good paying behavior. People don’t like Capture One’s new subscription policy but you can exit after 5 years with a full permanent license where you end. If Adobe did that, I’d consider going back. Although I have taken a dislike to what I see Adobe doing with its AI with regard to marketing and functions to essentially message that photographers are useless. So I vote with my local currency and choose elsewhere.

And circling back around to the original post, we certainly could use more information. Hopefully they will return and provide more information about their computer and needs.
 
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Mal Paso said:
It is a good value but you need a very good internet connection. When I was on Hughes Satellite I had Adobe SHUT DOWN my use of Photoshop for 3 separate weekends which is why I Dumped Adobe. That won't happen with Affinity.

Adobe Customer Service is Nonexistent if you have problems.
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Wrong. A good internet connection is needed if you want to use Lightroom and the cloud side. If you use LR and the local storage option or Classic…Internet connectivity is irrelevant.
 
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Anjin San said:
Wrong. A good internet connection is needed if you want to use Lightroom and the cloud side. If you use LR and the local storage option or Classic…Internet connectivity is irrelevant.
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Wrong. Product registration Verification takes place over the internet and my crappy Hughes connection caused photoshop Installed On My Computer to Shut Down.
 
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Anjin San said:
Wrong. A good internet connection is needed if you want to use Lightroom and the cloud side. If you use LR and the local storage option or Classic…Internet connectivity is irrelevant.
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I recall that Classic, and LR v.6x (Perpetual) all "phone home" from time to time to verify the license. I cannot remember how long you have offline, but I do not believe it is indefinite. LR5.x and earlier did not do this.

--Ken
 
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Replytoken said:
I recall that Classic, and LR v.6x (Perpetual) all "phone home" from time to time to verify the license. I cannot remember how long you have offline, but I do not believe it is indefinite. LR5.x and earlier did not do this.

--Ken
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It is 30 days…and if you run into that then a coffee shop or hotel internet connection is plenty to allow the update. I understand the update…but the comment I was replying to saying that a very good internet connection is required is just plain wrong…connecting to the hotspot on your phone is plenty as is whatever you read email on.

Now using LR vice Classic and wanting to use the cloud features or the gen AI that sends things out to the Adobe servers…those do require a pretty quick internet connection.
 
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NWGuy said:
Not seeing On1 Photo Raw mentioned. <$100 and I've used it along with LRC with good results. It does have quite an extensive tool set. I know initial poster wanted inexpensive, but what to folks think of the Topaz products?
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Cool! Just downloaded a 30 day trial and will check it out before the Black Friday event expires. Thank You!
 
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Cree Native said:
I was curious if anyone has any suggestions for editing software.. I am a hobbyist and can't justify the expense of Lightroom. Currently I am using PhotoScape X pro and I like it but I just get a feeling I could do a little better. I have tried the Nikon NX Studio but find the Photoscape X does a little better. Suggestions?
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Affinity photo. It's very similar to the Adobe products. There are a lot of tutorials for it. If you are patient you can get it cheap on sale. About 3 weeks ago I purchased all three of the newest products for 30 dollars. Updates are free.
 
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For free software, you cannot beat Nikon NX Studio. I use it along with DXO PhotoLab 8, Elite version. NX Studio has control points for local adjustments. They are not as robust as the control points and control lines in DXO PL8, but for many images they might be all that you need.

If your workflow involves dual monitors and/or two computers, like a laptop and then a desktop, make sure any software you are considering will work well for you under these environments. Free trials are great to test out needed features.
 
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FWIW, there is also an open source Photoshop clone called Pixelitor. It is free. It has its limitations. For example, it won't open RAW (NEF) files. It doesn't support them. At one time it was available in the Linux (Ubuntu & Mint) repositories, but I think it's been removed. Regardless, the graphical interface is very similar to Photoshop, and if you're just working with jpegs, it's worth a look.
 
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NWGuy said:
Not seeing On1 Photo Raw mentioned. <$100 and I've used it along with LRC with good results. It does have quite an extensive tool set. I know initial poster wanted inexpensive, but what to folks think of the Topaz products?
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I agree, I’ve been using ON1 for a few years and have been very impressed with its features. The price is very reasonable and they are constantly updating with improvements. Their support is top notch and they offer free webinars that highlight their features set.
 
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