Adobe is increasing it’s plan prices, starting June 17, 2025

On June 17th, 2025, Adobe will be increasing their pricing across the board, for their Creative Cloud subscription plans. Their new plan will be called Creative Cloud Pro, and will include full access to the AI features that have been introduced to all of the Adobe apps, and 4,000 credits/mo for Premium generative features in Firefly, Premiere Pro and more. This new “Pro” plan will increase all subscriptions by $10/month, making the Individual plans cost $69.99/mo, and their Student and Teacher plan cost $39.99/mo (with a 1 year introductory price of $29.99/mo). This will also offer premium versions of Adobe’s Mobile and web-based apps.
(Note: changes apply to only customers in North America, at this point)

For those who are not interested in their AI features, there is also a new plan called Creative Cloud Standard, which will cost $54.99/mo, with no Student and Teacher pricing. This is a far more limited plan, offering full access to all the apps, but only basic features available in some of the Mobile and Web apps. There is a very limited access (25 credits/mo) to the “Generative Fill” features in some of the apps, and no access to any other AI features.

None of these price changes affect the Single app or Photography plans. It also does not affect existing subscribers of Photoshop Mobile, Adobe Express Premium, Adobe Stock, Substance Collection, Acrobat Standard, or Acrobat Pro.

This change will take place automatically for existing subscribers, leaving exactly 15 days from now, to either alter your budget, change your subscription, or leave Adobe completely.

Personally, I find it infuriating, that they are providing such short notice (note: this post is a bit late, and the changes were announced on May 30th – but still, that would have been 18 days!!! Businesses and Professionals can definitely support the idea of an additional $120/year, but individuals and hobbyists are again, left out in the cold, by Adobe. I realize professionals are their “bread and butter”, but this kind of short notice will really put some people in a bind.

Some popular alternatives to Adobe Software:

  • Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, Affinity Publisher (Photo, Vector Illustration, and Page Layout)
  • DaVinci Resolve (Video Editing)
  • Skylum Luminar Neo (Photo Editing) – use discount code SGANS_DISC for 10% off
  • On1 Photo Raw (Photo Editing) – use discount code AYM4TRAINING20 for 20% off a regular purchase (NOTE: if you go this route, wait until tomorrow, for their 20th Anniversary sale with HUGE discounts!)
  • Audacity – FREE audio editing software
  • Inkscape – Free Vector Graphics Software

There are quite a few more. If you have particular questions, or want other alternatives, please comment below.

For additional information:
Adobe Help Center – Changes to Changes to Creative Cloud for individuals plans including
students and teachers plans

A Useful Clarification of the Term “Image Resolution” in Digital Images

In so many of my classes, particularly Photoshop, Digital Photography and the Video applications, we discuss image resolution – or DPI – dots per inch (or PPI – pixels per inch). For the most part, my students seem to grasp the concepts from when I teach in (as I describe it) “Stephanese“. But here’s another discussion on the subject – this time in “CreativeBloqese“.

Check out this article from CreativeBloq.com for further clarification on the subject of pixel resolution (height/width/depth) of an image for print and for screen viewing:
http://www.creativebloq.com/graphic-design/what-is-dpi-image-resolution-71515673/2

On1 Sweepstakes is Starting!

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And, in the meantime, click ON1 Effects 10 FREE to download a free version of the On1 set of Photoshop plugins

A Great Photoshop Plugin has a Great Sweepstakes Coming

As an avid Photoshop user, as well as teacher, I’ve become enamored of a few of the best plugins available for various purposes. One of my main Go-To plugin suites is the On1 set. I’m planning on doing quite a few tutorials on this set, and will be speaking a lot about it in the coming months.

They’re about to release a brilliant new RAW processing app, which will complement their suite. It can be used as a replacement or adjunct to your normal Photoshop or Lightroom workflow, and it promises to be terrific.

To encourage people to check out their software, On1 is going to be launching a new SWEEPSTAKES this Sunday, September 18th. They’ll be giving away all sorts of things – iPads, cameras, drones, software… and I encourage you to enter the sweepstakes! To do so, please click the banner on this post.

In the meantime, I also suggest checking out their ON1 Effects 10 FREE plugin for Photoshop

You know how I like FREE!!!

Click this banner to enter the On1 Sweepstakes this Sunday!
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For the love of Typography

As most of my design and graphics students know, I’m a bit of a type geek. In almost every class, even if it’s not in our regular syllabus, I try to include at least a brief introduction to Type as Design – or, Typography. 

And, you probably also know how I stress the idea of kerning – the way individual letterforms fit together, as a method of refining your work, adding a cohesive look and confirming that you’ve taken some time and put in some effort at making your type look good, as well as read well.

Today, I found an excellent infographic at Digital Synopsis.com, that may help you to make better decisions about how to improve your Headers, your Titles, and all display type. Take a look!

Really Interesting and Informative Typography Article

As almost all of my students know, I’m a bit of a type geek. So, imagine how fulfilled my inner geek feels, when I find blog post about Typefaces, Type Structure, Type families, Type anatomy, and Type Classification, the use of Type in Paragraphs, Typographic Terms like kerning and spacing, Page Layout and Type, and so much more!

Although this article is written with a focus on software development, the article is about DESIGN. Knowing what you’re using, and why. As I always say “in design, you can always break the rules, but first you have to know what the rules are!”

I seriously recommend this article to all my design students, my motion graphics students, my still image students, and anyone else who feels that Type is more than just a way to make a word show up.

http://www.imaginarycloud.com/blog/a-typography-workshop/?ref=webdesignernews.com

Adobe is discontinuing it’s Edge Tools

According to an Adobe Blog, Adobe is about to cease support and updates for it’s Edge tools, including Edge Reflow, Edge Inspect, and Edge Animate. Some of their functionality will be implemented within Adobe Dreamweaver and Adobe Muse – and will also be covered in Adobe’s upcoming Flash Pro replacement, Adobe Animate – which is due out in January.

Creative Cloud members cans till download and use the Edge products, , and security updates will still be implemented

Please see their original blog post at: http://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/update-about-edge-tools-and-services/

Adobe is Severely Limiting it’s Font Installations

In a recent article on InDesign Secrets, I can finally find the reason why so many of my InDesign classes have been having font errors when using files from the Adobe courseware. It seems that InDesign – and all of the Adobe programs, for that matter, are no longer installing the fonts that used to come with the programs! I’ve been using Adobe programs for too many  years than I want to count, so of course, I have the fonts installed, but so many of my students are downloading demo software for their classes, and work in an environment with security limitations, so they can’t easily access Adobe’s Typekit (part of the Creative Cloud suite).

In my opinion, this is a terrible move on Adobe’s part, and I can’t quite figure out why they’re choosing to do it. Over the years, I’ve seen Adobe seemingly losing touch with their users in quite a few ways, but in software that’s ABOUT design, I can’t imagine what they’re thinking.

To view the post on InDesignSecrets.com, please visit http://indesignsecrets.com/adobe-drops-fonts-leaves-users-stranded.php

There’s an earlier article about the issue here: http://indesignsecrets.com/happened-fonts-indesign.php   (which includes a work-around)

And, for a list of the fonts originally installed, and mostly still necessary, please see Adobe’s article here: http://www.adobe.com/products/type/creative-suite-6-installed-fonts.html

As for me, I’ve backed up ALL of my installed fonts into a directory I use for my font management program. I suggest you do the same. If you’d like instructions for doing so, please comment on this post.

 

MANY new Adobe Updates coming SOON!

Up until today, I was under NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) to not reveal what’s coming up to MANY of my student’s favorite Adobe Apps – but today, with the announcement at NAB, all may be revealed. In fact, Adobe themselves revealed what’s to come to Adobe Premiere Pro (oh, my goodness, what they’re doing!), After Effects, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash, Muse, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Audition!

You can check out the upcoming changes to the Video Editing apps here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/coming-next-to-adobe-pro-video-tools/

I’m sure there’re going to be many more blog posts at Adobe, to tell us the rest…