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Photoshop ToS grants Adobe access to user projects for 'content moderation'
- 20after4 2y agoIf you're still using Adobe's products, stop. Better late than never. Adobe had some great products. Then they over charged for them. Then they required a "cloud" subscription. There are alternatives. Support one of the startups or open source projects that are competing with them. Don't give Adobe another cent.
- WalterSear 2y agoAdobe: the golden goose that wouldn't die, but just festers on.
- NBJack 2y agoI think it's already dead; the vestiges of life it exhibits are basically the electrical tethers of AI editing, cloud 'collaboration', and various other "tweaks" trying to justify a yearly release of a product that feature-peaked years ago.
- lancesells 2y agoI went a very long time not using Adobe's products but I hit a wall when I went to do some motion-based projects. What's the After Effects alternative?
- adwi 2y agoNot one-to-one (node vs layer metaphor) but Fusion is stupid powerful and free within Davinci Resolve. It’s an incredible piece of software that, in addition to being best in class color correction, has fully replaced Adobe in my professional video workflow (Premiere, AE, AME, etc) https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/fusion https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/fus...
- freedomben 2y agoAnother vote for Black Magic. They also support Linux as first-class citizens, which makes a world of difference to me.
- stevenicr 2y agoI discovered this when looking at video effects options within envato elements. There are now over 6,000 templates there, that many moons ago I assumed were only really feasible with after effects. I also see they have some for apple motion and final cut - but I don't do mac so they stay off my radar. More using davinci and demanding effects that work with it, the better! Most of the video effects I use regularly though are the built in ones in corel videostudio though - https://learn.corel.com/tutorials/applying-fx-filters/ https://learn.corel.com/tutorials/applying-fx-filters/
- lancesells 2y agoThanks. I'll give it a try with a quick project.
- havilland 2y agoI wouldn’t even look at startups if there is a viable open source alternative. Most startups are just looking to get a big enough user base to get bought by the big players.
- bishbosh 2y agoExactly, any startup will just be on a different place of the enshitification curve.
- freedomben 2y agoAgreed, though personally if their product is open source or source available, I'm much less concerned since I'm not screwed if/when they enshittify or go belly up.
- orangesite 2y agoWhomever is downvoting you clearly has an interest in one or more startups.
- squigz 2y agoLet's not forget the HN is literally about startups. Easy to forget that and think it's just "hackers" and "nerds" sharing cool links. It's not.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- alwillis 2y agoI went Adobe-less a few years ago; can't recommend Affinity enough. [1] I know there's some concern since Canva bought Affinity a couple of months ago, assuming they're going to turn the Affinity suite into a subscription product. I don't share those concerns; Affinity huge rise in popularity is because it's not a subscription like Adobe's core offering. A one-time payment gets you Affinity Designer, Photo and Publisher for macOS, Windows and iPad. [1]: https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/
- qwertox 2y agoWow, thanks for sharing. All apps. All platforms. No subscription. €179.99 ONE-OFF PAYMENT | incl. tax That really seems fair.
- DHPersonal 2y agoCanva just bought Affinity software offerings, so who knows how long they will be a one-time purchase program.
- bhewes 2y agoAt least near term it stays the same - https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/affinity-and-canva-pledge/ https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/press/newsroom/affinity-and...
- vunderba 2y agoI migrated away from Adobe after Photoshop CS6 which I believe was the last release before they switched over to a subscription only pricing model. If you're looking for a Photoshop alternative to break away from the incredibly user hostile relationship with Adobe I can heartily recommend either Krita (open source) or Pixelmator (Mac only). Pixelmator Pro is my daily driver for image related work and is incredibly snappy and surprisingly full featured for an application that costs a fraction of PS - $50.00 onetime fee. https://www.pixelmator.com/pro/ https://www.pixelmator.com/pro/ https://krita.org/en/ https://krita.org/en/
- omoikane 2y agoI would recommend DxO PhotoLab as an alternative to Adobe Lightroom for a similar reason (perpetual license instead of subscription).
- Brajeshwar 2y agoI'm a user/subscriber to Skylum for the past few years and it integrates well with macOS Photos. Both Affinity Photos and Pixelmator Pro also integrates with Photos. I'm not a professional. DxO PhotoLab does looks good especially with their focus on RAW. I plan to start shooting mostly in RAW. Do DxO plays well with macOS Photos and how does it compare to Skylum's (Neo)?
- walteweiss 2y agoI second both statements. I used Pixelmator Pro on a Mac for maybe a decade (before it became Pro), and it’s very good. I would highly recommend it to anyone on a Mac. Long ago they had 50% discount, I don’t know whether they still do discounts these days. It’s a one-time payment, so even without a discount they worth what they ask. If you work with the app all day long, every day, it’s such a pleasure after the ugly Photoshop. Pixelmator allowed me to forget Photoshop for good. And even allowed me to move to Linux, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40572874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40572874 Pixelmator Pro doesn’t work on Linux (it’s macOS exclusive, afaik), but it allowed me to stop being dependent on Photoshop and look for other alternatives. Krita is quite good on Linux. I cannot compare them as I’m not an artist myself, but for my use case Krita is good enough. Since it’s FOSS you can start with that easily.
- barbariangrunge 2y agoFor alternatives, I really liked the affinity suite, but they just got acquired.
- barbariangrunge 2y ago> The user agreement also leaves open the possibility to train AI using user-generated content, saying they can use the content they retrieve to “improve our Services and Software“.
- spacephysics 2y agoThey’re double dipping like a lot of these companies. Pay for the service, and use your human made content as valuable training data Or with something like Reddit use ads to make money then sell api access to human content
- WalterSear 2y agoIt's interesting that they are so hungry for training data that they would seek access to people's half finished photoshop files. I'm reminded of what just happened to google: this seems as effective a strategy as training an LLM on reddit shitposts.
- Brajeshwar 2y agoAdobe Photoshop was one of the tools that helped me earn money professionally during my school and college days, so I had a nostalgic relationship with it. Then, I had a good relationship with Adobe in various ways for a long time in the 2000s. I stopped using such tools long back, but I wanted to keep one handy to remind me of the old days. I found Serif's Affinity[1] to be a good alternative so far. I've been a customer since its beta, and I had to buy once, then an upgrade with their recent v2.0 The other good, light, quick, and easy-to-use alternative is Pixelmator Pro[2]. In the last 4-5 years, I think I have only had to pay for it twice. 1. https://affinity.serif.com/ https://affinity.serif.com/ 2. https://www.pixelmator.com/pro/ https://www.pixelmator.com/pro/
- zimpenfish 2y ago> The other good, light, quick, and easy-to-use alternative is Pixelmator Pro Unless you want, e.g., a destructive crop[0] which they have been not adding for at least 4 years and counting. Since my graphic work generally involves cropping, that kinda rules out Pixelmator Pro for me and forces me back into the Adobe Tax Hole. [0] There are undoubtedly many other deficiencies but this one really irks me.
- walteweiss 2y agoWhat’s your work flow for needing to have a destructive crop?
- marcomourao 2y ago> Unless you want, e.g., a destructive crop Isn't this achieved by enabling the "Delete cropped pixels" option? From Pixelmator help: > Select "Delete cropped pixels" to permanently delete the cropped areas of an image or deselect it to crop the image nondestructively and hide the cropped areas of an image instead. https://www.pixelmator.com/support/guide/pixelmator-pro/1010/ https://www.pixelmator.com/support/guide/pixelmator-pro/1010...
- zimpenfish 2y agoBloody hell, completely missed that option. Yes, that does what I need! Thanks!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Lammy 2y agoI will hold on to my activation-free fully-offline Photoshop CS3 until the day Win32 finally dies. Still using it daily with an equally-old Wacom tablet to clean up all my flatbed scans :)
- underwatersea 2y agoYou can't compare Photoshop CS3 to the newer versions. I've been using Photoshop since CS2, it's incredible how far it went. Of course if it does the job you need, then that's great. I use the latest version of Photoshop to cleanup family photos, and to design video games. In both cases it would take me much longer to do the same thing in CS3. Time is quite valuable, and Photoshop is cheaper than Netflix every month.
- grishka 2y agoDoes this only relate to things you put into their cloud, or does Photoshop now upload your offline files to Adobe servers as well? By the way, it's always morally correct to pirate Adobe software for personal use. Which also allows you to fully firewall it because it no longer needs to talk to the activation server.
- UberFly 2y agoIt's only for people nutty enough to use their cloud services like Behance. And I agree with your second point.
- t-writescode 2y agoWhere do you see that? I don't see that when I read it.
- ptero 2y agoOn the contrary, it is for any images created with their software, whether you store those images in their cloud or at your own computer.
- hjkl0 2y agoBy pirating, you mean running modified binaries from unknown sources? Morals aside, how is that safe, secure, or even convenient?
- Lammy 2y agoI'll take my chances. Adobe have proven they want to spy on me 100% of the time and shake me down for as much cash as possible. Pirates ostensibly have to compete on the quality of the product they offer.
- grishka 2y agoI've been doing it all my life. I've literally never paid for a software license, I don't know any better. In general, I usually download from reputable sources. Haven't had any problems so far.
- skilled 2y agoI am guessing this needs to be taken with a grain of salt since the author did not get a reply from Adobe. Doesn’t look like they bothered to get it either. As I am reading it, this should not affect NDA work.
- undo-k 2y agoI replaced photoshop with photopea a while ago. I only use it for light work, but it’s the lowest friction alternative I’ve tried that runs on Linux. https://www.photopea.com/ https://www.photopea.com/
- kfarr 2y ago+1 for Photopea! Excellent drop-in replacement for Photoshop and Gimp is always there to help for HDR things that Photopea can't handle.
- stranded22 2y agoYup, love photopea. No need to wait for Photoshop to load and it works on any computer with a browser.
- zamalek 2y agoUnexpectedly fantastic news! My wife makes extensive use of the adobe PDF editing tools, which is has been a major blocker for getting her onto linux. What is a good replacement that works on windows and linux? Non-free is fine.
- bonestamp2 2y agoI can't answer windows/linux, but I use pdfexpert.com for mac and it's great. It was a one time $100 charge when I bought it several years ago, and it gets updated regularly.
- zamalek 2y agoThanks, but I'm more likely to use Windows or even TempleOS over MacOS.
- politelemon 2y agoHave a look at Qoppa, Master Pdf Editor, and Xournal.
- anthk 2y agoPDF was not created to be edited, but as a final output format ready to be printed as-is. OTOH, XournalPP has basic editing tools. So does LibreOffice.
- freedomben 2y agoXournal++ is my go to. It has a few quirks to get used to, but once you do it's quite functional. Biggest thing to watch out for is exporting and overwriting the source file. It will usually let you, but it often blanks out the source and loses your changes. So just make sure to export with a different filename than the original is. If you accept the default suggestion, it will work fine. It's also made to be used well with wacom tablets, so if you have one of those you can make use of it in xournal++. The older "Xournal" (no ++) is mostly functional but also dead, so I would go with Xournal++.
- Narhem 2y agoThe amount of illegal probing of my computers regardless of ToS has made me extremely uncomfortable.
- account42 2y agoWhy don't you do anything about it? There are alternatives.
- politelemon 2y agoA large swathe of professionals campaigned on behalf of Adobe when they switched from perpetual to subscription licensing. They willingly turned over control and this is merely the consequences of that willingness, which Adobe will continue to take advantage of. I don't see this leading to any changes, just pointing it out.
- nottorp 2y agoWouldn't surprise me if they got 90-100% discounts for a few years in exchange for saying it's a good thing.
- mock-possum 2y agoIt’d surprise me. Adobe, like Apple, has a strong fambase. They don’t need material kickbacks to shill for their favorite corpos, the thrill of shouting loud-and-proud for a cause is enough.
- peterashford 2y agoYup. There's a lot of cult-like adoration of the corporation in those communities
- taskforcegemini 2y agocan someone zoom in and erradicate this behavior on a genetic level? It is going to be the demise of humanity. or more weight on teaching critical thinking in schools
- stuckkeys 2y agoWhat are the thoughts on Krita?
- marcomourao 2y agoI stopped using Adobe a couple of years ago, replaced it with the Affinity suite. Publisher still lacks a lot of InDesign features but it gets the job done. For photography I'm using FastRawViewer for culling and Photomator for editing.
- soygem 2y agoI still can't draw a circle in gimp :(
- wizzwizz4 2y agoKrita! https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/tools/ellipse.html https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/tools/ellipse.htm... > Use this tool to paint an ellipse. The currently selected brush is used for drawing the ellipse outline. Click and hold the left mouse button to indicate one corner of the ‘bounding rectangle’ of the ellipse, then move your mouse to the opposite corner. Krita will show a preview of the ellipse using a thin line. Release the button to draw the ellipse.
- peterashford 2y agoI can :o) But I completely agree, it's very non-obvious. It beggars belief that they haven't fixed that issue. Another poster suggested Krita - that's a good suggestion IMO (even thou I still like Gimp too)
- shrubble 2y agoI remember a number of years ago getting a cheap 1-year Lightroom susbscription as part of a promo. Got it installed, loaded up a few photos. Then went back to the directory to load the photos in a different program for comparison. The photos were deleted from my hard drive! They were loaded into Lightroom's cloud service, and without my knowledge or permission (and I was using the just-installed defaults) it had deleted those files I had touched with Lightroom and "helpfully" uploaded them. I uninstalled Lightroom within the hour.
- vr46 2y agoAh, the new Lightroom CC! I was a happy, delighted, enthusiastic Lightroom user from the moment it originally came out and threw Aperture into the bin where it belongs. Lightroom was fast, brilliant to use, a fabulous wrapper around ACR and managed all the photo files perfectly. It was, to me, as perfect a piece of consumer software that has ever existed. The moment CC turned up, not only was it a cut-down version in terms of features, but the file management side was gone too, and this whole cloud functionality took over. A complete workflow change. The main benefit that I found, ok, the only benefit, was that I was able to easily create web galleries for client approval etc. Everything else was gone. Lightroom Classic came back, kind of, but the direction of travel was fixed. It took me years and years to finally get close to that one-stop-shop workflow, using Photo Mechanic and Capture One, both of which have gone subscription-based and offering close to zero value in return. My strategy now, I shit you not, is to never ever perform a major upgrade on this Mac and hold out until all the root SSL certificates expire with my current setup. We used to have such stable computing environments and now everything is a cloud-connected, exposed and defenceless security shitshow.
- freedomben 2y agoAgreed. This is I think the single biggest contributor to my now fairly radical approach to software. Unless the app is at least source available, I will only use it if I really need it. One of the most valuable things about open source to me now is simply that nobody can take it away. Sure maintainers can disappear, but (aside from accreted cruft/bitrot) I can keep using whatever version as long as I have hardware to run it on. I dedicated four hours to learning GIMP a few years ago, and many times now I've been so glad I did. There are a ton of books and courses out there for people looking to do the same. Kdenlive is another one I'm super glad I took the time to learn.
- quitit 2y agoEven if this is not what Adobe are doing, the author of the tweet is not incorrect to make such an interpretation from the terms. Now would be a good time for Adobe to do away with vague "catch all" language, because we now live in an era where user data is being swept up for AI model generation and governments are leaning heavily into tech companies for policing. However to play the devil's advocate we can see how these terms have come about without rounding up to tweeter's interpretation. Note: There is also good reasoning to believe this interpretation because using software that collects data indiscriminately would significantly impact the ability of Adobe's large customers to use their software. Since service agreements and various compliance standards forbid as such. First up are Adobe's online terms that relate to CSAM, abiding by subpoenas, security, and feedback/bug support. Those are all pretty standard for hosted services. So while some may not like that, this is a "nothing to see here" clause. However the "gotcha" for users comes about because a lot of Adobe's features rely on their cloud infrastructure which they may use unintentionally. This extends beyond using their cloud storage allowance or the Behance social network. Here are some examples: - Generative AI: in & out painting will send image data to Adobe for matching. - Farm rendering: Some apps, such as Dimension, feature off-site processing options. These of course mean that your content, textures, logos, etc are then on Adobe's servers for processing. - Forms dissemination: Hosting forms means that Adobe will have not just your content, but also that of people that fill out the form. - Review features: Review features are all performed through the cloud. - Moving documents between devices: Using the app's built into tools to move a document/graphic between devices is performed via the cloud. There are many more scenarios, but I've tried to choose a range to demonstrate variety, and how that extends beyond actions where the user is deliberately using online storage. The next part of Adobe's terms is noting that they don't specifically call out online versus offline processing, rather they use the terms "Services" and "Products". This would appear to be explainable as Adobe's apps include algorithms that enforce certain types of document security, such as anti-counterfeiting measures, watermarking, Content Credentials and copyright embedding. The vague language of this clause is the source of the problem, as Adobe don't demarcate where and why the processing is performed. So in summary the overly vague language can be chalked up to legal brevity, but in this era that is insufficient for peace of mind.
- Sohcahtoa82 2y ago
- hereme888 2y agoLol! "Solely for the purposes of operating or improving the Services and Software...we can access and use your data, even for marketing our Software or services." The gall of these people...
- jerojero 2y agoI'm going to be using their service for another year and then cancelling (my "annual" plan starts on march).
- Zuiii 2y agoCan't you just remove your payment info and let it get canceled on its own?
- davidee 2y agoI loathe Adobe, and yet we still pay for their products. I hated when they moved to subscription and stuck with CS5.5 for ages. However as the team grew and we needed seats for our talent, Creative Cloud was a small added cost worth paying. This might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. But, Libraries were a game changer - especially for those who needed quick, easy access to assets generated by other artists on the team. And generative fill in photoshop is exceptional. Still, we’re a much smaller team now and we can absolutely transition our skills to other suites/applications. I’ve long been an affinity customer just to encourage the development of the alternative. Time to start playing more seriously.
- mesh 2y agoAdobe post info here: https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-adobe-terms-of-use https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/06/06/clarification-a... Including a diff of what actually changed in the TOS.
- LocalH 2y agoIt may not be legal, but it's always moral to pirate Adobe when they do this shit.
- Havoc 2y agoCorporations are getting more and more liberal with what rights to other people’s stuff they grant themselves