For £9.99 a month — basically a tenner, or the price of two, maybe three coffees — you could legally have both programmes installed on up to two computers. For anyone who enjoyed photography or needed Photoshop, it seemed like a pretty fair deal.
Then, suddenly, the price went up by around 50%.
And, to be honest, it really bugged me.
I know that £5 or £6 a month might not sound like a huge amount of money. But it’s not really about the individual payment. It’s the principle of increasing the price of something that, unlike food, fuel or household essentials, isn’t something most people actually need to live.
This isn’t bread. It isn’t petrol. It isn’t electricity.
It’s software.
Digital software is particularly interesting because there isn’t a physical product being manufactured every time I open Lightroom or Photoshop. Once the software exists, thousands — potentially millions — of people can use it. Of course, Adobe has development, server, support and infrastructure costs, but from a customer’s perspective, a sudden 50% increase feels difficult to swallow when the product hasn’t suddenly become 50% better.
And that’s what annoyed me most.
At £9.99, I didn’t think about the cost very much. It was easy to justify. Ten pounds a month? Fine. That’s a couple of coffees. I get Photoshop and Lightroom, I can use them on two computers, and everyone is happy.
But increase that by 50% and suddenly I’m thinking about it every month.
That’s the problem with subscriptions. A price increase isn’t a one-off expense. It’s another recurring cost that follows you month after month, year after year.
£5 extra every month is £60 a year.
Over five years, that’s £300.
Over ten years, it’s £600.
And that’s assuming Adobe never increases the price again.
Maybe I’m being old-fashioned, but I still remember when software was something you bought rather than something you continually rented. Subscriptions certainly have their advantages, but they also make it incredibly easy for companies to quietly increase what you’re paying over time.
And perhaps that’s why this particular price increase bothered me more than it should have.
It wasn’t that I suddenly couldn’t afford it.
It was that something which had felt like a good-value, almost insignificant monthly expense suddenly felt like another subscription taking a bigger bite out of my wallet.
And when it’s software rather than something essential, you start asking yourself a very simple question:
Is it really worth it?
Why I’m Leaving Adobe After More Than Two Decades
After more than 20 years with Adobe, I’ve finally reached a point where I have to ask myself a simple question:
For me, the answer is no — not anymore.
Is it still worth it?
That isn’t because Adobe’s software is bad. Quite the opposite. Photoshop and Lightroom are incredibly capable pieces of software, and over the years they’ve become an important part of my photography workflow.
But there’s the problem.
I simply don’t use enough of what I’m paying for.
I Don’t Need Photoshop
Photoshop has an almost ridiculous number of features. It can do things I couldn’t have imagined when I first started using it.
The trouble is, I probably use less than half of what Photoshop has to offer.
Actually, if I’m being completely honest, I use a fraction of it.
Lightroom, on the other hand, is a different story.
I use most of what Lightroom offers me. Importing, organising, cataloguing, developing RAW files, adjusting exposure, colour, contrast, cropping and all the other things that have become part of my everyday photography workflow.
Lightroom is the bit I really want.
Photoshop is increasingly the bit I’m paying for because it happens to be bundled with it.
And that doesn’t make much sense to me anymore.
So Is There a Better Way?
That’s the question I’ve been asking myself.
Is there a cheaper alternative?
Better still, is there a free alternative?
There are certainly options. Software such as darktable offers a surprisingly capable free alternative for RAW processing and photo management. There are also commercial alternatives such as Capture One, DxO PhotoLab and ON1 Photo RAW.
None of them are a magic, one-click replacement for Lightroom. After spending more than two decades inside the Adobe ecosystem, there’s inevitably going to be some adjustment involved.
But perhaps that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Maybe the biggest hurdle isn’t finding software that does everything Adobe does.
Maybe it’s accepting that I don’t actually need software that does everything Adobe does.
Twenty Years Is a Long Time
Walking away from Adobe after more than 20 years isn’t a decision I’ve made lightly.
There’s a lot of history there. I’ve built workflows around Adobe products, accumulated years of photographs and developed habits that are deeply ingrained.
But loyalty shouldn’t mean paying for things you don’t use.
Technology changes. The way we work changes. And sometimes we need to step back and ask whether we’re still choosing something because it’s the best solution for us — or simply because we’ve been using it for so long.
For me, I think it’s time to find out.
So this isn’t really about Adobe versus everyone else.
It’s about asking a much simpler question:
What do I actually need, and what’s the most sensible way of getting it?
After more than two decades with Adobe, I’m finally ready to find out.
Please be sure to follow this post, please save for the future as I am currently beta testing two / maybe three pieces of trial software. I will add as a long term loyal customer of Adobe’s I do in a way feel cheated.