Affinity vs Photoshop

[smoke665]

Adobe LR/PS: $20/month = $240/year or $2400 in ten years. $7200 over thirty years. Plus sales tax. It adds up. A lot of dough you can buy a top-notch camera.

Going off thread so relevance? However using your example, we generally end up at McDonald's at least once a week with Lil'Bit. "If" we're lucky and take advantage of the app we only spend $20/week=$1040/yr or $10,400 in 10yrs. Do we consider the cost, or do we enjoy the time spent with our Grandaughter? What about the lines of people at the popular coffe spots who open their wallets for over priced coffee! They obviously aren't overly concerned with the money.

For the professional its a cost of doing business, for the hobbyists it's an indulgent pleasure that close to 40 million feel is worth the cost.

 

[TJMcG115 2]

Going off thread so relevance? However using your example, we generally end up at McDonald's at least once a week with Lil'Bit. "If" we're lucky and take advantage of the app we only spend $20/week=$1040/yr or $10,400 in 10yrs. Do we consider the cost, or do we enjoy the time spent with our Grandaughter? What about the lines of people at the popular coffe spots who open their wallets for over priced coffee! They obviously aren't overly concerned with the money.

For the professional its a cost of doing business, for the hobbyists it's an indulgent pleasure that close to 40 million feel is worth the cost.

Topic drift is to be expected, I think, and is not always inherently bad. In this case, and most of the other like topics, you must know that it will eventually get around to how horrible Adobe is for charging for their industry-standard software instead of giving away a sub-standard version, because "nobody needs more than a basic editor if they are a real photographer."

If I start saving now, $20 a month, and I have $7200 to spend on a new camera in 30 years, I will be 113 years old. Will there still be cameras as we know them in 30 years? Will inflation stop in its tracks? How much will a mid-to-top-line camera cost? How much interest will I have in photography at that age?

When I opened my email yesterday, I saw a great offer from Topaz: "Save $17.00 a month forever!!." Yes, buy now and get the Topaz suite of utterly useless (to me) AI tools for only $20 a month (after savings of $17.00)! No layer based editing, no channels, no lumiosity masks, no perfectly targeted selections, just a bunch of AI stuff that I will never use anyway for the same price as Photoshop and Lightroom, which of course, since I am a legacy customer, I get for $10 a month.

Will we get that price forever? What else do you get today that cost the same as 5 years ago? In this case, I have been paying the same for about 14 years now, and getting every major upgrade and minor update at no extra cost. The average cost for a new full-size pickup truck in early 2026 starts around $40,000 for base models, with popular configurations and well-equipped versions often ranging from the high $40,000s to the mid-$60,000s, while high-performance or luxury trims can exceed $100,000, reflecting a general upward trend in pricing. Grocery prices are the highest in history; gasoline, when I was in the Air Force 60 years ago was 19¢ a gallon. Today gas is over $3.00.

I enjoy editing my photos, and I began almost 30 years ago using Photoshop in a professional position in a commercial lab. Since those days, even with the immense inflation we have experienced in virtually every facet of our lives, Photoshop is acutally cheaper than it was then, and better by magnitudes, no matter how you measure it.

Everyone has their own measure of value, and mine is that $120 a year for the best is a bargain.

 

[smoke665]

Everyone has their own measure of value, and mine is that $120 a year for the best is a bargain.

When you stop and think about it, buying software is a lot like taking a wife/husband, some good, some bad, some tolerable. You can look, compare and even try them out, but once you take them home you're stuck with them or it costs $$$$ to change, and having some comparisons (in either) makes for a better decision!

 

[AlanKlein82 21]

Going off thread so relevance? However using your example, we generally end up at McDonald's at least once a week with Lil'Bit. "If" we're lucky and take advantage of the app we only spend $20/week=$1040/yr or $10,400 in 10yrs. Do we consider the cost, or do we enjoy the time spent with our Grandaughter? What about the lines of people at the popular coffe spots who open their wallets for over priced coffee! They obviously aren't overly concerned with the money.

For the professional its a cost of doing business, for the hobbyists it's an indulgent pleasure that close to 40 million feel is worth the cost.

People here shoot expired film to save a couple of bucks. So cost is an issue for many people. Knowing the difference in price between products is relevant when comparing.

 

[smoke665]

People here shoot expired film to save a couple of bucks.

The people I know who shoot expired film (or any film for that matter) aren't concerned about the cost, its for the results. If they were concerned about cost they'd shoot digital.

 

[William Baroo]

I did some figuring. I can use Photolab, Viewpoint, and Excire Foto for around $110 per year if I don't upgrade often (once in 6 years), but that does not include a real JPG editor. So far, since trying to get up to speed on raw editing, I haven't had any real use for JPG editors, but I guess that may change. Call it $660, tax excluded.

Lightroom and Photoshop would run me about $240 per year, so $1440 over 6 years. I'm not saying it's not worth it, because I'm not in a position to judge, but that's the number, and it assumes Adobe doesn't crack down again.

I'm like you, Alan. I never look at the monthly cost of anything unless it's something like Starlink, where there is no choice. I remember having a girl from Verizon try to sell me something or other for $20 per month. I said, "That's $480." She couldn't understand. I was multiplying by the 24 months of installments. She was a kid who thought of everything in terms of monthly cost, so I blew her mind with obvious math.

I remember back when I was shopping for a motorcycle. A Harley dealership employee told me he had a customer who would walk in, throw his keys on the counter, tell him which new bike he wanted, and say, "Make it $250 per month." They must have loved that guy. He probably lives in a dumpster now.

 

[DanOstergren27 2]

For hobbyists I can understand the cost of Adobe CC not being worth the money, especially if they have little or no interest in what they can do with the software. For me it's an integral part of my professional workflow and it pays for itself several times over every month, and to be honest I spend significantly more money on caffeine and junk food each month. I remember when you had to buy the software outright and each version was more expensive than the last, with new versions every few years. It was very expensive to stay up to date and making a big purchase at once like that is more difficult than making monthly payments in small increments. Now I can have a version that always stays up to date, for significantly less than what I spend on caffeine and junk food each month.
My perspective comes from someone who has been using Photoshop since 2003 though. It's what I know and I know it well, and that familiarity in itself makes it worth the cost to me rather than having to learn new software.

 

[smoke665]

perspective comes from someone who has been using Photoshop since 2003 though. It's what I know and I know it well, and that familiarity in itself makes it worth the cost to me rather than having to learn new software.

Expanding on your point, by staying with any software package over time there is residual knowledge that carries over to each update. It's not like starting from scratch and needing to learn everything at once.

Also a consideration when buying new software, it's wise to look to your future needs as switching later can be painful.

 

[AlanKlein82 21]

I did some figuring. I can use Photolab, Viewpoint, and Excire Foto for around $110 per year if I don't upgrade often (once in 6 years), but that does not include a real JPG editor. So far, since trying to get up to speed on raw editing, I haven't had any real use for JPG editors, but I guess that may change. Call it $660, tax excluded.

Lightroom and Photoshop would run me about $240 per year, so $1440 over 6 years. I'm not saying it's not worth it, because I'm not in a position to judge, but that's the number, and it assumes Adobe doesn't crack down again.

I'm like you, Alan. I never look at the monthly cost of anything unless it's something like Starlink, where there is no choice. I remember having a girl from Verizon try to sell me something or other for $20 per month. I said, "That's $480." She couldn't understand. I was multiplying by the 24 months of installments. She was a kid who thought of everything in terms of monthly cost, so I blew her mind with obvious math.

I remember back when I was shopping for a motorcycle. A Harley dealership employee told me he had a customer who would walk in, throw his keys on the counter, tell him which new bike he wanted, and say, "Make it $250 per month." They must have loved that guy. He probably lives in a dumpster now.

Adobe quadrupled its profits (or more) when it went to leasing software. Someone is paying for it.

 

[DanOstergren27 2]

Adobe quadrupled its profits (or more) when it went to leasing software. Someone is paying for it.

Part of that could be attributed to folks pirating it less. That was the case for me. Before CC, I couldn't afford Photoshop, so I found other means of obtaining it. When they switched to the CC model, I could finally afford to stop pirating it and start paying for it, and I've had no complaints about paying for it ever since.

 

[AlanKlein82 21]

A little off topic. I'm leasing 3 Comcast clickers for three TVs. They just raise the monthly lease price to $14 each. Can you replace them with purchased type that would work? I replaced my Comcast modem/router with an Arris model a few years back and have stopped paying for that lease.

 

[AlanKlein82 21]

A little off topic. I'm leasing 3 Comcast clickers for three TVs. They just raise the monthly lease price to $14 each. Can you replace them with purchased type that would work? I replaced my Comcast modem/router with an Arris model a few years back and have stopped paying for that lease.

I just got my answer from Comcast. I'm out of luck. remote clickers include the box that allows the TV to connect to their services. So you can't just buy the remote becasue it won;t work without their connect box. They work together. You an still buy your own router/modem however rather than leasing it from them.

 

[William Baroo]

I decided to give Lightroom and Photoshop a trial to find out if what I'm missing as a hobbyist is worth the money. So far, I like Photolab better, and Excire Foto is serving me well, but I will keep fiddling with Adobe to give it a fair shot at convincing me.

 

[TJMcG115 2]

I decided to give Lightroom and Photoshop a trial to find out if what I'm missing as a hobbyist is worth the money. So far, I like Photolab better, and Excire Foto is serving me well, but I will keep fiddling with Adobe to give it a fair shot at convincing me.

After having used Photoshop for more than thirty years, I can tell you with every certainty that you do not learn Photoshop by "fiddling" with it. It sounds like something much simpler will suit you better.

 

[William Baroo]

I haven't even gotten to Photoshop yet. I'm still figuring Lightroom out.