I spotted Online Goddess’ blog post, Re: An Infuriating Goodbye to Photoshop, which itself is a reply to Gavin Anderegg’s An infuriating goodbye to Photoshop on Bubbles and had to add my tuppence worth.
Like Gavin and OG, I’ve been using Photoshop a long time. I switched to Photoshop 5 after Corel bought Paint Shop Pro and ruined it, and although I always preferred PSP7 over Photoshop, PS5 saw me through the years of blogging and pixel art and eventually working in web (when standards were lower and I was allowed to design stuff for clients).
When Adobe went over to the subscription model and Photoshop became “Creative Cloud” I was not particularly happy, but even as my own design work tailed off I was still regularly dissecting PSDs for clients and so it seemed only fair to pay for something I was making money from.
I wasn’t particularly happy with the way CC seemed to take over my computer with background processes, nor the fact that I had to regularly update my startup apps list to prevent it strong-arming it’s way into the fresh boot line-up, but these were minor annoyances that I could overlook (griping out loud to nobody listening in the process).
As the years went by, the cost slowly crept up and the best monthly price was reserved for those who cycled through new accounts using multiple email addresses, or went through an endless threaten to cancel / get new offer hassle. The double pricing scale was infuriating but I kept on renewing.
Eventually the days of slicing PSDs gave way to exporting from Sketch and later Figma, but Photoshop still helped when I inherited the odd legacy project or needed to do a bit of basic image manipulation. I seemed to use it just enough to keep it, but never quite enough to warrant spending time looking at alternatives. Convenience has a price, I guess.
Until… earlier this year, when I went to edit my hosts file to point a client’s domain at new IPs to test a migration prior to the DNS switcheroo, and there before my very eyes were a set of IPs that I very much had not put there.
In my opinion, this was a step too far. Given that Windows makes the user load the hosts file with administrator privileges to edit it, CC editing it unrequested, unwarranted and without direct permission felt weirdly violating. Like Gavin said, this was malware behaviour. I cancelled my subscription on the spot and immediately removed Creative Cloud from my computer.
I’m pretty much exclusively using the free Affinity software now, having previously paid for and used Affinity Designer for editing SVGs. It’s got enough similarities to Photoshop that I’m not completely lost, and free is a pretty convincing price point to be honest…
I spotted Bubbles in my basic referrers this morning, and my heart lit up. A little directory, surfacing blog posts from actual bloggers, what in the old web is going on?! This isn’t the first time I’ve spotted a resurgence in indie / ‘old’ web stuff lately. Personal sites are making a comeback, bloggers are… read full entry »
I had a quick flick through the 50+ drafts dating back to 2013 sat in the back-end this morning and spotted one near the top entitled ‘West Midlands Autumn Cup Powerlifting Competition’. That comp happened nearly three years ago (September 2023) which really cements how bad I’ve been at blogging over the last few years…. read full entry »
I completed another of my 40 before forty list last week and fulfilled a childhood dream in the process: I went up in a hot air balloon. Shane bought the balloon vouchers for me for Christmas last year, and after redeeming the vouchers with Wickers World we had repeatedly tried to book evening flights, but… read full entry »
I’ve started writing a post to sum up hitting 40 and a recap on my progress on all the things I wanted to achieve before I hit 40 about 6 times since the start of January and each time I get about one paragraph in and the inspiration just fizzles out. I think it’s partly… read full entry »
Well, not mine, per se. Anyone’s would do. I’ve been ill, on and off, since about August. A cold that started to mend then covid hit that started to mend then a sinus infection that started to mend and then a cold again… you get the gist. At my weakest, most pathetic moment – when… read full entry »
In news that surprises absolutely nobody, I’ve gone another year where I’ve barely blogged. I realised earlier this year that it’s not for lack of things to talk about – christ, this year has had some moments – but rather this feeling that every post must be polished, have an accompanying featured image, have the… read full entry »
If you read my last post, you’ll know that I’ve been thinking about doing the “75HARD” social media challenge for a while, but have been put off by the creator’s sketchy opinions and general persona (that’s basically the gist of the previous post, no need to read it now) I went on to Instagram earlier… read full entry »
I’ve been thinking about doing the 75HARD challenge. If you’re not familiar with 75HARD, it’s a fitness challenge that first did the rounds years ago and has had a bit of a resurgence this year. The rules stipulate that every day, you must: This isn’t a new thing, I’ve considered it several times, and even… read full entry »
I am just over a week out from Newport marathon. It should be the ”finisher”, to round off one of my 40 before forty goals. It’s a compromise on “Run a marathon in every major UK city” (because it turns out many major UK cities don’t have marathons) in which I decided I would run… read full entry »