Technology

I'm a creative. I've used InDesign since version 1.0. I've built my career with Adobe tools.

Adobe Creative Cloud peaked around ten years ago. Since then, it's totally jumped the shark. I'm not even talking about the company, just the software and its features.

When I open InDesign, Photoshop, or Illustrator I'm trying to work. It's software I've used for, in some cases, 25 years. My point is, I know it inside and out.

The past few years, every new "feature" gets in the way of my work. Adobe has been changing things that already worked very well, or has added extra steps to do something that used to be easy.

Even worse, Adobe has started to fill its software with notifications that can not be disabled. Invasive blue dots. Invasive blue buttons. Invasive blue overlays that stay visible on the screen even when the software is minimized. Rich tool tips that aren't disabled by the option to disable rich tool tips.

Adobe has lost me as a devotee. It's been taken over by venture capital. The company only cares about adoption of new features.

Now, I use it out habit. Because my workplace provides it. Because it's what folks on my team are used to... but because they've come to the ecosystem so late, they only know a fraction of its capabilities.

If Adobe faces demise, I will mourn what if once was. But not what it has become.

Well deserved

Fuck Adobe & their subscription model. I switched to affinity & never looked back

Adobe has always been pricy. The tradeoff was that you were getting one of the best, if not the best piece of software for that nieche.

They have failed to keep their product the best while trying to lock in users with cancellation fees, which is going to backfire hard.

The only thing they can do to try and maintain dominance now is to go back to quality software that offers features that creatives want.

Good, fuck Adobe.

I mean, I use every alternative I can. Vapoursynth scripts, libraw-based projects, random GitHub repos, DaVinci…

But there are some features I just can’t get great support for outside of definitely-not-high-seas Lightroom Classic:

• Good lens profiles for weird lenses.

• Proper HDR PQ/HLG editing and AVIF/JXL export support.

• RAW support for newer cameras, like my little R50V

I have yet to try DaVinci’s photo editing mode though. That’s very interesting.

I don't like Adobe, but you have to understand that their business is not selling software, it's keeping people locked into their platform.

A rival being free matter not a jot when you've got decades of work in Adobe formats, and no end of experience with Adobe software. Especially when the company is paying for it all anyway.

This is great news for everyone.

We're in a mature software stage for these art software applications. Easier to catch up than create new features that people make essential to their workflow. Today it's commercial alternatives that have closed the gap well enough. Someday in the future open source stuff will. It's inevitable

Good. Adobe is crap

After CS6 did Adobe started going downhill, beginning with subscriptions replacing paid licenses.

Currently using Krita, and sometimes Paint(dot)net for touchups.

A few years ago I replaced Photoshop with Affinity. Affinity's user interface is pretty awful, even compared to Photoshop, but it does at least run a bit better. A few years ago I switched from premiere pro to da Vinci resolve, and though resolve has a bit of a learning curve, overall I think it's better than premiere - it's definitely faster and crashes a lot less.

I'm hoping that audacity 4 is a good enough audio editor to replace audition - we'll see, audition is actually pretty good imo but I'd accept a slight downgrade if it means I can get away from Adobe entirely.

People pay for Adobe?

Haven't used PS in ages. Gimp, Audacity, Inkscape, etc

Wonderful! Now I need an Acrobat alternative that my work will accept, and I can kick adobe to the slims from which it came.

I mean isn't it more of that the industry is just recognizing the war that Adobe started years ago?

full disclaimer all I've read is the damn headline

Autodesk next, please

that article is like an alternativeto list

Maybe not a good look to go "AI! AI! AI!" when the actual creatives who use the product get attacked for using AI:

https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2025/09/a-wonky-image-on-a-powells-books-t-shirt-was-generated-with-help-from-ai-it-caused-an-uproar.html

I've been using Affinity since 2016 and it has been a good decision so far. Since Affinity Publisher also replaced InDesign (Affinity Designer had already been sufficient for most things), I retired my old CS5.

At work I introduced the programs to my bosses; afterwards all the computers were switched to Affinity, and none of my colleagues miss the old Adobe stuff.

Only one old machine still has an old CS version installed, just for checking and viewing legacy files — it doesn't cost anything anyway.

Anyone who knows if I can migrate a huge old light room library. I closed my subscription about 3 years ago and my library has just been sitting there since. All my eddits should be saved in sidecar files but there is probably other stuff saved in the library that could be useful. I tried darktables back then, but I kinda dropped photography as a hobby so never looked much into it. I want to pick it up again some time soon tho

good