Adobe Photoshop now $35.99/month

[gregbradley]

Wow, Photoshop now costs $35.99 a month. That's $431.44 a year!

When you consider a lot of the upgrades are not relevant to astrophotography.
you have to wonder if that is worth it.

Especially compared to Pixinsight which is a one off cost and they do lots of updates for free.

Looks like I'll have to learn more of PixInsight.

Greg.

[alpal]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Wow, Photoshop now costs $35.99 a month. That's $431.44 a year!

When you consider a lot of the upgrades are not relevant to astrophotography.
you have to wonder if that is worth it.

Especially compared to Pixinsight which is a one off cost and they do lots of updates for free.

Looks like I'll have to learn more of PixInsight.

Greg.

Why not use the old versions like 5.5 and 6.0 ? -

they still work in Win7, Win10 and Win11 -
and there is no subscription to pay -
you paid only once.

[leon]

I use version 3, yea it is old but it does everything I need and I still have the disc and loaded that on Win 11. on my Lappy, no license needed i might add.

$39.00 a month, what a rip off.

Leon

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

Don't forget you will be charged a juicy cancellation fee to stop using it as while you can pay by the month the subscription is yearly - and you'd most likely be leaving earlier than adobe would like.

I think the new GIMP is better than the older Photoshops - definitely more powerful than CS6 for example (which has very limited 32bit editing). But there are of course adjustments to get used to particularly when you're so used to Adobe..

[ronson]

Gimp is a great free alternative.

Affinity Photo is a great, no subscription and reasonably priced, alternative.

[Drac0 (Mark)]

I cancelled my subscription for thier PS/LR bundle a couple of months ago. Cost me over $50 to do it but that was half of paying the monthly fee until my "renewal" came due.

I've switched to Affinity Photo for my astro work - it has astro support built in, including stacking, & if you add the free astro macros by James Ritton (who works for Affinity) it is a very powerful tool at a fraction of the cost of PS or PI. And I can use it for my normal photography work as well.

Cheers,
Mark

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Does Affinity photo have a trial?
It seems it may only be suitable for Windows 11, can anyone confirm this, I have 10 on a laptop and it won't run 11.

[Drac0 (Mark)]

Originally Posted by Leo.G

Does Affinity photo have a trial?
It seems it may only be suitable for Windows 11, can anyone confirm this, I have 10 on a laptop and it won't run 11.

Hi Leo,

A seven day free trial & I'm running it on Windows 10 with no issues. If you want to test it out for astro be sure to get the astro macros from James Ritson to go with it ( https://jamesritson.co.uk/resources.html ). These are free but you do have the option of paying a "fair price" donation if you wish.

Before starting your trial, I suggest you look at James' tutorials on YouTube to get an idea of what's possible. Note that some of the tutorials are getting a little behind what is available now but will give you a guide for when you start the trial. Having a look beforehand won't waste your short trial time.

[EDIT]
Note that if you aren't in a rush they frequently have a sale price, often ~30% off. And you only pay again if you wish to upgrade to a new full release, incremental updates are of course free. From version 1 to version 2 took around seven years and v2 has had a couple of years now, currently at v2.6. And if you don't want to upgrade to the new one, you don't need to, the version you have will keep working just fine.

If you need a hand feel free to message me.

Cheers,
Mark

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Thanks Mark!
I'll have a look into it.

[NeilW]

I have the photography package, which gives me full Lightroom, Photoshop for $14.29 a month.

[DarkArts]

Although I use both RawTherapee and GIMP on Linux, both are also available for Windows and MacOS.

Both are free, forever.

[Crater101 (Warren)]

I used Lightroom 4.4.1 and Photoshop CS6 for years, but when I had to update my PC, all of a sudden I found that they wouldn't work unless I loggged into an Adobe account every seven days.

I switched to Affinity Photo. Almost as many features, one-off fee, good support forum, and while I took a week or two to sort out the differences between them, I haven't looked back.

[garymck (Gary)]

Originally Posted by NeilW

I have the photography package, which gives me full Lightroom, Photoshop for $14.29 a month.

Except that on your next renewal date it will go up to $30.99 per month !!

I'm cancelling next month, my renewal date is August.

Gary

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Originally Posted by garymck

Except that on your next renewal date it will go up to $30.99 per month !!

I'm cancelling next month, my renewal date is August.

Gary

Yes it's quite ridiculous. I've been holding off moving to PI &/or Gimp but maybe now is the time?

[Startrek (Martin)]

I started with Startools version 1.4 back in 2017 which cost me $35
Latest version is 1.9 and costs $69. The later versions 1.8 and 1.9 have come a long long way from its early days and suits both beginner and advanced.
It’s a one off cost and you keep your licence forever. Cost includes 2 years worth of upgrades
It’s a different animal than traditional processing software as it actively tracks your data from start to finish with an evolutionary tracking engine ( no histograms , levels or curves , support masks and the like ie: hacks and kludges ) it knows exactly what you did and where you are plus it can time travel back an forth. It uses one long equation for each pixel.
I love it as the defaults take you exactly where you want to be ie: optimal starting point , and from there you can take it where you want without exacerbating noise or sacrificing signal.
It doesn’t cater for artistic rendering and stays true to your data. ie: Documentary AP
It takes all the legwork away, sets an optimal starting point and puts you totally in control.

I must be the only one on IIS who uses it ?? Most folk use Pi or PS

https://www.startools.org/

Cheers
Martin

[AstroViking (Steve)]

To the original poster - as others have suggested, Affinity Photo is a good alternative to PhotoShop. I use AP and can recommend it.

To Martin - thanks for the pointer to StarTools. I'm tempted to give that a shot, it looks a capable piece of software.

Regards,
V.

[alpal]

Adobe has got a hell of a cheek.
Photoshop 5.5 CS was released in February 1999 for both Mac and Windows.

That is 26 years ago and most people like us only use it once in a blue Moon
and not for making any money out of it -
just for personal use on an Astro photo.
The fact that they are still trying to make money out of such an old version
is more than greedy.
I could maybe understand if it was the latest 2025 version.

It's like if Microsoft was still charging for Windows 95 -
even their latest Win11 is free to download if you have Win7 or Win10.
I did so one week ago and all is well.

[Startrek (Martin)]

Originally Posted by AstroViking

To the original poster - as others have suggested, Affinity Photo is a good alternative to PhotoShop. I use AP and can recommend it.

To Martin - thanks for the pointer to StarTools. I'm tempted to give that a shot, it looks a capable piece of software.

Regards,
V.

I forgot to mention there’s a free trial version you can use to get a feel for the software. Unlike other software you have to ensure your stacked data set follows some important do’s and dont’s ( on website ) to get the best out of it.
Happy to offer tips etc…
Martin

[ChrisV (Chris)]

PI is now sounding very reasonable. I paid about $350 for it in 2017, so hasn't changed much since then +/- exchange rate changes. And I've never had to pay for any upgrades - and I don't think I'd object if there was some major revision given the cost of Photoshop. That's the American tech monopolies for you

I also occasionally use GIMP in a very rudimentary way.