Adobe Creative Cloud

Here's the deal.

Before May 2013, if you wanted to use an Adobe product - Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, Premiere Pro,  whatever - you had to buy it, either each one or as a suite of many applications. Or, like many in India, you 'borrowed' it. But 'borrowing' Adobe software is inconvenient and even dangerous. If you were in an organisation, even a small shop in Adarsh Nagar or MHADA, you faced the prospect of a raid and subsequent purchase. 

Many people pointed to the high price of Adobe products, but that is never a good excuse to steal, which is what 'borrowing' software really is.

Recently Adobe announced that its products will now be available online, as a monthly subscription. It's called Adobe Creative Cloud. You need to get a membership to the Creative Cloud. Once you do that, you can use any Adobe product by downloading it. As part of the membership you also get 20 GB of space on Adobe's servers where you can save your work and access it on any machine connected to the Internet.

So, what does that mean to us creative artists in India?

The basic Creative cloud membership is Rs 2,700 per month. And you have to commit to a year's membership at least. During that year you pay 2,700 x 12 = Rs 32,400. If you have any Adobe software after CS 3, you can upgrade for just Rs 1,600 per month, or Rs. 19,200 per year. Students and teachers get it for Rs 1000 per month only.

Even if you only use Photoshop and/or After Effects, getting the Creative Cloud at Rs 2,700 per month is a no-brainer. Pay once and its debited to your card every month. Like buying software with an EMI. You won't even feel it.

And for that you can download and use any (or even all) of these. And you can install on up to two machines belonging to you.

Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Muse

Other apps like 

Acrobat Pro, Adobe Audition, Bridge CC, Encore, Fireworks, Flash Builder, Flash Professional, Adobe InCopy, Lightroom, Media Encoder, Prelude, SpeedGrade

Edge Apps like

Edge Animate, Edge Inspect, Edge Web Fonts, PhoneGap Build, Edge Code, Edge Reflow, 

Services like

Story, Kuler, Business Catalyst, Typekit, Behance, ProSite

Touch Apps like

Photoshop Touch, Kuler for iPhone, Ideas, Behance for iPhone, Creative Portfolio for iPhone.

For all those who crib about FCP 7 being discontinued, remember, FCP 7 costed no less than Rs 50,000 to buy. If you switch to Avid, you're looking at over Rs 80,000 for a new Avid license. 

But for Rs 32,400, Premiere Pro is yours for a year. With Photoshop and After Effects and many other apps free - all this on two machines.