NZFF

Yeah, just about everything is going subscription these days and it means we need to be very selective.I wonder how long it will take companies to realise how many customers they are missing out on? I did just subscribe to Office 365 for Families though, but that was because my Wife needed the Office apps for her studies and the extra space is also handy; I'll probably drop Netflix to compensate (rarely watch it these days), but I haven't yet (its only been two weeks).

I also notice that 'upgrades' are often more frequent but offer little, so I am typically now waiting 3 or even more versions between upgrades and, unless I need a new feature or compatibility, I may just not bother at all, or wait until the 'last option to upgrade' comes around. I just looked at Pinnacle Studio which I use for video editing and I have v23 but v26 is out and I've decided not to bother at this time.

Except for things I actually use for flight sim, which thankfully at this stage is just SPAD.Next which is a yearly thing if you want to keep it updated.

I use the "Photography" plan which includes Lightroom and PS but nothing else, it does seem a bit steep but I used to pay for it as a business expense (which it was until I stopped contracting recently). Now I'm looking to start using Gimp again (for flight sim textures and general photography related stuff), have you used it Aharon? Is open source and cost free and really there's nothing you can't do in it one way or another that you would need PS for. Take a look

I do have to keep an eye on my subscriptions, now that I'm a pensioner:) There are two which I couldn't live without, Spotify and Photoshop. Like deeknow, I use the photography plan, so Photoshop costs me NZ16 a month, which is US10, so yeah US$120 a year. Luckily both Spotify and Photoshop are paid via Paypal, so I just need to sell one scenery per month for each, and it looks after itself. However as I've only had two orders this month through my own store there's not much wriggle room! Simmarket sales pay for all the other business costs at the moment, luckily, but it's been a while since there was any profit.

I still use Office 2003 -- this goes back to the beginning when I was more interested in MS Office that flightsim, and MS gave me a MVP subscription for a few years to say thanks for my MS Publisher support website. I have nearly all the MS software ever made, except that most of it is 20 years old:) When they ran out of stuff to send me, they started on the games, one of them was flightsim and that kinda got away on me....

I do find myself using the free Office apps more and more, mainly for quick spreadsheets. I also subscribe to a few too many streaming services. The only subscription which stresses me out is 3DS Max, which is $450 a year, so I may not be able to keep that much longer. This is great software for the business, but a bit dear for a hobbyist, which I'm becoming, now I use it mainly for modelling 3D model railway prints.

But as far as Photoshop is concerned, I've had a lifetime interest in photography, so I get a lot of use out of it.

Thanks all for kind replies and suggestions.

I do not know if Gimp has all functions that Photoshop CS 5.1 has. I am trying to buy single upgrade copy of Photoshop CS 6.0. I use Photoshop CS 5.1 only for flight simming screenshots so it is too expensive to pay extorting fees of Phtoshop subscription.

I am exploring other image editing softwares in hope they have same functions that Photoshop CS 5.1 has.

This looks interesting to me as seen below:

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/photo/

And I like those more as seen below:

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/store/ ... g-brushes/

https://affinity.serif.com/en-us/store/ ... d-brushes/

Regards,

Aharon

Anyway, while I was shopping around for alternative editing softwares to meet my needs for replacing Photoshop CS 5.1, Adobe tech support told me this morning that Adobe Photoshop Elements 2023 would be exactly same as few year old Photoshop CS 5.1, Although I was much much skeptical of the tech support's claim knowing that it is probably phony sales pitch, I decided to check features and system requirements of the Elements 2023, I was EXTREMELY shocked to find out that this Elements 2023 has WHOPPING WHOPPING 30 GB file size!!. That is equivalent to THIRTY payware airport sceneries!!

Sheesh

Regards,

Aharon

Dont shop around mate, just get Gimp, trust me