A death knell could be heard around the Adobe Max conference in Los Angeles today as it was announced that Creative Suite is to be no more. There will be no CS7 because CS6 is now officially the final release of the series. In its stead, Adobe will offer all of its design software exclusively through the Creative Cloud (CC). Starting in June, the "next generation" of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and all other CS programs will be available on a subscription basis through the Cloud. Adobe will continue to offer CS6 to consumers for the foreseeable future, but they will no longer be updating it.
Word in the tech world has it that Adobe is making the switch to CC to ensure a more constant source of income. Instead of making lots of money once every other year when a new version of CS is launched, they can now rely on a more steady flow of income from subscriptions through CC. It is also thought that software piracy has weighed heavily in this decision. With a subscription based service, it will be more difficult for users to share programs illegally, thus relieving Adobe of what had been an enormous scourge to their business.
No doubt there will be blow back from customers as a result of this announcement. At first glance, it's easy to assume that a subscription will be more expensive and less desirable than owning off-the-shelf software. Numbers have been crunched by many in the industry, however, (refer to Sarah Schwartz's cost analysis of CC vs. CS from July 2012) and the general consensus is that users will save money as long as they subscribe to multiple applications. And, we still get to keep the software on our desktops. If that's not enough to move you forward in the CC direction, Adobe is promising lots of new features and perks to those who subscribe.
It seems like this is the way software use is heading, so like it or not, resistance is futile!-Kiera | |
With our Adobe tutorial meeting coming up this week, I thought I would share a great tool that I just discovered—a super helpful map of keyboard shortcuts for Photoshop (CS6).Using keyboard shortcuts can add up to loads of saved time when working on a computer. However, many people are reluctant to jump the learning hurdle to make shortcuts a habit. There's no better time than the present to start practicing! The more you use them the stronger your muscle memory will become and the more you will love them!
Below is a helpful chart of shortcuts for Photoshop CS6 created by the folks at Zerolag. Click on the image to see a larger version and bookmark it for future use. Their layout of the commands on a keyboard diagram is such a great idea—more helpful than a straight list. Take advantage of this wonderfully visual tool!-Kiera | |  Image from zerolag.com
| Want to learn some techniques that help make repeats faster and easier? Does color matching on your printer plague you? Or, are you still stumped on how to make seamless overlapping motifs on the computer?
At our next meeting, SPDG members Sarah Schwartz and Jill Turney will take you through several techniques in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator that will boost your digital surface pattern design skills.
Sarah will be demonstrating a way to help make creating repeats faster, easier, and more accurately. She will also be showing us a technique to achieve a quick, accurate color match on printers.
Jill will be giving a demo on how to use the masking tools in PhotoShop to create seamless overlapping motifs. This is a great trick to use with loose designs and watercolors. And, as an added bonus, she'll share some cool effects that she's been able to apply to her motifs using the "puppet" tool.
You should never stop learning, so be sure to join us next Thursday for some continuing education!
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Image from patternobserver.com
Have you ever wished you could capture the full repeat on a large piece of vintage fabric or an oversized art print without all the fuss that using a home office scanner requires? Do you wish you could find a scanning service that has an eye for pattern design and the patience to deal with scanning fabric? Well, look no further than Dots Per Inch! Michelle Fifis of Pattern Observer alerted us to this Philidelphia upstart run by surface pattern designer Amy Voloshin of Printfresh Studio. Dots Per Inch has the technology to scan large seamless repeats up to 600 dpi, sparing you the time and frustration of scanning fabric in sections and then rebuilding it on the computer. To learn more about Amy and her businesses, as well as the advantages of a professional art scan, visit the Pattern Observer site for an interview with her.-Kiera | |
LONG DISTANCE MEMBERS: If you would like to be included in the drawing for a 1 year subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud, please respond to this blog post or email us by noon PST, January 17, 2013. | |
 Morris & Co. Wallpaper. Printed between 1915 & 1917. Have you ever wondered how wallpaper gets printed? There are tons of traditional methods:
- Block printing;
- Flock;
- Pan (Trough) Printing;
- Surface Print;
- Flat-bed Screen;
- Rotary Screen;
- Flexographic; and
- Gravure.
The Surface Pattern Design Guild and Bay Area Licensing Artists will be co-hosting a panel discussion on the benefit of social media in growing our businesses.
When: Monday, September 17th at 7:00 pm
Where: The Finnish Hall, 1970 Chestnut St, Berkeley
Fee: $5 (cash only, please); FREE for members of SPDG
The evening will be of interest to artists of all kinds whose objectives include licensing or selling their art. We have invited a group of social-media savvy artists to talk with us about their experiences and successes using this new platform to promote their work. Please note that this will not be a how-to or step-by-step presentation, but rather a lively discussion about how to leverage social media for our art businesses.
PANELISTS: | | ALISHA WILSON
Licensing Artist, Illustrator and Blogger
Senior Designer, Citrix Online, San FranciscoExperience: Blogging, Facebook,
Twitter (@AlishaWilson) | TAMARA HOLLAND
Licensing Artist, Greeting Card Designer and Blogger
Author of the Kindle ebook "How to Start Making Your Art Your Business"
Partner at Morning Coffee ProductionsIndependent West Coast sales rep for greeting card artists
Experience: Facebook, Twitter (@Tamholland) | CINDY ANN GANADEN
Licensing Artist, Illustrator and Blogger
Former Design Manager and Art DirectorIn a September interview for her blog, Tara Reed began by saying "I do believe I 'met' Cindy on Twitter..."Experience: Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter (@cindyannganaden) | |
Many of you may have noticed that Adobe is offering some alternative pricing and packages for its Creative Suite products, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. You can buy these packages individually, bundled together in Creative Suite Standard, or as subscriptions to each software program or to Adobe’s new Creative Cloud. But which is the most cost effective way to buy it?
The answer: It depends!!
What is Creative Cloud?
Let’s understand what Adobe is offering under its new product Creative Cloud. Creative Cloud is a membership service giving you access to all of the following applications: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Muse, Acrobat X Pro, Flash Professional, Flash Builder, Dreamweaver, Edge Preview, Fireworks, Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Adobe Audition, SpeedGrade, Adobe Prelude, Encore, Bridge, Media Encoder, Business Catalyst, Typekit, Story Plus. Really.... you get access to all of that for the $49.99/mo subscription price! Plus you automatically get all of the upgrades to the applications as they are released as well as access to 20GB of cloud based storage and syncing. It sounds fabulous! But is it worth it?
Pricing
Here’s Adobe’s pricing as of 7/21/12: Overall Cost of Creative Suite Standard with Upgrades vs. Creative Cloud Subscription
Let’s look at the total cost of Creative Suite Standard CS6 vs. a subscription to Creative Cloud. For this analysis I am using today’s prices, so it’s not going to be completely accurate, but it will give you good direction. We know the subscription to Creative Cloud is about $600/yr. But what is the annual cost of Creative Suite Standard per year?
| Upgrade annually
If you like to stay up to date and upgrade every year, here’s your total cost:
$1299 initial purchase + $549/yr upgrades, then
- after two years, your per year cost is $924 (($1299 + $549)/2 years),
- after three years, your per year cost is $799 (($1299 + $549 + $549)/3 years), and
- after four years, your per year cost is $737 each year (($1299 + ($549x3))/4 years).
In fact, it takes FIFTEEN years before your overall costs will be $600/yr.
(When evaluating annual upgrade costs, I chose to use the $549 cost instead of the $275 because it is unlikely that upgrade costs will be $275 every year as it seems that $275 is a one-time thing for CS5.5 only. In addition, Adobe tends to incentivize the annual upgrader by offering a lower price for those who own the most recent version, hence I did not use $699 since $699 is used for upgrading from versions at least two versions displaced. Of course, the analysis assumes that the upgrade costs do not vary from year to year. This analysis also assumes Adobe outputs a new version every 12 months.)
Upgrade biennially
Now, let’s say you upgrade every two years instead of every year. In that case, you would pay $1299 up front and $699 every other year thereafter. After four years (initial purchase plus one upgrade), you will have spent about $2000 = $500/year.
| | Conclusion: Considering the entire costs of the software package, if you upgrade every year, it is cost effective to get the Creative Cloud membership. If you upgrade every other year, though, you will experience cost savings over Creative Cloud by purchasing Creative Suite Standard outright.
(Why did I choose 4 years as the timespan for my evaluations? Because that time period is relevant for the biennial upgrader who will have purchased the program and one upgrade.)
| Creative Suite Standard Upgrades Only vs. Creative Cloud Subscription
But what if you’ve made the investment in Creative Suite a year or two (or more) ago, and now you’re deciding which way to go in terms of general cash-flow? Let’s do the analysis again, but let’s take the initial purchase cost out of it since the investment has already been made. We’ll just look at upgrade costs vs. subscription costs.
| Annual upgrade
If you are upgrading annually, we’ll assume the cost stays at $549. You save $50 a year over the $600 Creative Cloud subscription. You have to decide if that $50/year is worth saving or worth spending to get all of the benefits Creative Cloud offers (access to all of the applications, regular upgrades, access to 20GB cloud storage).
Biennial upgrade
But if you are only upgrading biennially at $699, you will be spending upgrade fees of about $350 annually. So when compared to the Creative Cloud membership of $600/year, you would be saving $250/year.
| | Conclusion: When looking only at upgrade costs for cash-flow, if you like to upgrade annually, even though it’s an additional $50, it may still be worth it for the Creative Cloud subscription for all the extras, even if you just use one additional app or the cloud storage. However, if you only upgrade biennially, while you won’t get the upgrades as quickly, you will be saving a good chunk of cash if you buy outright.
| Overall Cost of Individual Program (PS or AI) vs. Individual Subscriptions
What if you don’t have Creative Suite, but have purchased either Photoshop or Illustrator individually? Should you subscribe to the individual program?
| Overall cost with annual upgrades
If you only own Photoshop and you upgrade annually your cost per year over four years will be about $325/yr (($699 initial price + three years of upgrade costs)/4 years). In contrast, annual subscription fees will be $240/year, so over four years, you are better off buying the subscription. Illustrator will also be better by subscription (($599 initial price + (3x$249))/4years).
Overall cost with biennial upgrades
If you only upgrade every two years, your price/year over four years for Photoshop will be $225 (($699 initial cost + $199 upgrade)/4 years), so you’ll be slightly better off buying outright. With Illustrator, your price/year over four years will be about $212 (($599 initial cost + $249 upgrade)/4 years), so again, buying outright is the way to go.
Overall cost of both programs
Now if you buy both Photoshop and Illustrator individually (you don’t need or want the entire Creative Suite Standard package), your per year cost over 4 years is $662/yr ((($699 + $599 initial cost)+(($199+$249)x3))/4 years). You are better off with with the annual subscriptions to both applications ($480/yr) or even the Creative Cloud membership ($600/yr). If you only upgrade biennially, your per year cost over 4 years is $437 ((($699 + $599 initial cost) + ($199+$249 upgrade))/4 years)... so better to buy outright and upgrade.
| | Conclusion: If you upgrade annually, subscriptions are the better deal. But if you are a biennial upgrader, stick with buying the program outright... the overall costs are lower.
| Individual Program (PS or AI) Upgrades only vs. Individual Subscriptions
| Now let’s assume you have already made the investment in the programs and are just trying to figure out the better deal for cash-flow. Taking the initial purchase price out of the equation, a subscription for each individual program will cost you $240/year. Upgrade costs for Photoshop are $200/year and for Illustrator are $250/year. So the subscription for Illustrator is the better deal (but not for Photoshop).
If you are only looking at upgrades vs. subscription of both applications combined and take the initial purchase price out, your annual upgrade cost will be $450, so you are better off buying outright with annual upgrades.
| | Conclusion: Looking at upgrade price vs. subscriptions for cash-flow, for the annual upgrader, the Illustrator subscription has a slight edge over outright purchase, but the biennial upgrader should buy outright.
| One last note
If you are at all considering the Creative Cloud membership, through August, Adobe is offering Creative Cloud incentive pricing for current Creative Suite users (CS3 and above): $29.99/mo (with annual commitment) for your first year. That’s only $360 for your first year! ~ Sarah
 Photo courtesy of www.bioalloy.org. We know you were impressed by Anke Domaske’s Qmilch, a fabric made from spoiled milk protein. Well, hold on to your glasses wine and beer lovers: Researchers at the University of Western Australia have devised a way to turn your favorite fermented beverage into clothing. The cellulose fabric, dubbed Micro’be’, isn’t quite as advanced as Qmilch (it looks a bit like raw meat, lacks flexibility, and smells just like the alcoholic beverage it orginated from) but the material's creators are excited about its potential. Click here to read more about Micro’be’. Cheers!~Ruby
 E-textile pillow from www.acceleratingfuture.com.  Ally Seely's "Touch Glove" will be featured at this year's eTextile Lounge. Photo from www.lbruning.com. |
Surface pattern design goes technologic in the eTextile Lounge at this weekend’s Bay Area Maker Faire (the equivalent of Disneyland for crafty, creative, and science loving folks).
“E-Textiles,” also known as electronic textiles or smart textiles, are fabrics that enable computing, digital components, and electronics to be embedded in them. Crafty Maker Faire participants have added useful and fun twists to their designs.
Highlights of this year's event include a Wearable Tech Fashion Show at 1pm on Saturday, May 19th, and an Interactive Wearable Computing presentation on Sunday, May 20th, at 2:30pm. Click here to check out the rest of the 2012 eTextile Lounge event line-up.
Past showcases featured such novelties as a sound reactive illuminated dress, a map bag, LED beaded bangles, and, my personal favorite, the “Clap Off Bra!”
Have fun and get inspired!
-Ruby |
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