Adobe CC Alternative The CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X8

[Joe]

Fewer employees making less money is because of increased production due to advances in technology. It takes fewer employees to do the same amount of work as it did 30 years ago. And it takes a lot less skilled worker then it did 30 years ago which results in lower wages. 30 years ago Macs and PC's were barely a part of a print shop. At that time I worked for one of the old large print corporations in the US and we had a Linotype-Hell prepress systems. Others used Scitex systems or one of the other high-end systems. Those systems ran several hundred thousands dollars so the cost of a Mac/Adobe combination is microscopic compared to the systems in use 30 years ago.

The demise of print shops had nothing to do with the fact they were using Macs and Adobe products. It had to do with poor management not adapting to a changing industry along with some cut-throat pricing in the industry. If a company goes under because of a $2,000 computer and $50 per month software subscription they have much bigger problems than what products they use in their prepress area. I'm not a fan of the subscription software but it isn't just Adobe doing it. Adobe can just get away with it because they have no competition. And Corel is not competition to Adobe.

I actually like Windows 10 but the problem with Windows systems is that the hardware in a Windows PC can be from anyone that can solder a circuit board and write a half-assed driver. You can build the highest end PC possible but if you put hardware in it that is poorly constructed with faulty drivers you are going to have problems no matter what OS it is running. The Macs hardware/drivers are locked to Apple so it is still a lot more stable than your average PC. I run both and administer both in our shop. I know which systems are more troublesome and it isn't the Macs. As far as the article you posted, the comment "PC malware has dropped considerably, whereas malware on Apple machines is at an all time high." is complete nonsense. If you believe that I have some open front property in Kansas to sell you. The article was basically an ad for the Microsoft Surface Studio. Which by the way I think it is a pretty cool machine though the starting price is insane. It is overpriced by about $1,000.

 

[dabob]

Also, he doesn't need to be insulting a large portion of us by telling us were dying out simply because we're using Adobe and Mac. It's not a relative statement or conclusion

Take a look at industry reports over the last 25 years and tell me how you come up with a conclusion that the current MAC/Adobe business model is good for anyone. Fewer print shops, lower margins, lower inflation adjusted salaries, I'll go are far as to say that in many cases the hourly rates being paid in many shops are what was being paid 20 years ago. If I conclude that an industry is dying it's because the numbers point that way.

David . . . if you are going to blame MACs for business failures you might as well blame Heidelberg, vs Komori vs Ryobi vs Akamia vs MBO vs Polar vs Baum etc etc etc . . a good workman doesn't blame the tools . . .


From what I've seen, businesses fail by poor management decisions, a lower volume of print volume - a great majority of my shops printing involved printing product sheets/brochures for distribution at conventions, now a days they make a pdf of the sheet and then they load that along with "product sheets" to all their other products onto a $2.50 USB stick . . . boom there goes millions of dollars of printing - we avoided that by shifting our focus to point of sale and packaging years ago. You need to be able to see down the road and be adaptable. Your dire prognostication is like acquainting the death of trade shows with the use of convention centers . . . there is no correlation between the two . .. and by the way . .. Apple is the largest company in the world (by market cap) hummm there must be something wrong there don't ya think.?????

 

[macVato]

And IBM says.... http://www.computerworld.com/articl...-are-even-cheaper-to-run-than-it-thought.html

 

[dabob]

And IBM says.... http://www.computerworld.com/articl...-are-even-cheaper-to-run-than-it-thought.html

Here's an interesting excerpt from the above link . . .

IBM began replacing PCs with Macs in early 2015, when it began giving employees the choice to upgrade to a Mac when their company kit needed upgrading. The data speaks for itself, at IBM an astonishing 73 percent of employees will choose a Mac when they get the chance to choose for themself, Previn said.

nuff said . . .

 

[AP90]

Here's an interesting excerpt from the above link . . .

IBM began replacing PCs with Macs in early 2015, when it began giving employees the choice to upgrade to a Mac when their company kit needed upgrading. The data speaks for itself, at IBM an astonishing 73 percent of employees will choose a Mac when they get the chance to choose for themself, Previn said.

nuff said . . .

Im guessing it just looks good on paper for IBM because they're a dying company. All Mac users are. I bet they even use the dreaded Adobe Acrobat for viewing their PDF files. They need to pack up those Macs ASAP and get some PC's back in there unless they want to go by the wayside. Also, switch from that ugly Acrobat interface and go ahead and add CorelDRAW. That way they can just change some colors on their PDF's while viewing them with the best program in the world......

 

[geozinger]

While I don’t buy David’s argument entirely, I think he does have somewhat interesting insights. I feel he’s comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended), when comparing a company that makes displays and wraps to a regular printing company. There are far too many variables in each company (even if they are in the same segment) to make valid empirical comparisons.

I should establish some bona fides here. I’ve been a graphic designer since we were still using non-repro blue boards to paste chunks of galley type and FPO photos onto. My first hardware/software combination was Aldus PageMaker on a Win 3 PC, followed shortly by an original 9” Mac and the early versions of Adobe Illustrator 88 and Adobe Photoshop. I’ve used a variety of machines in a wide range of situations. I consider myself platform-agnostic. It has caused me some serious disagreements with both my Mac and PC centric friends.

Having said that, Apple lost me as an ardent fan about the time the iPhone came out. It seems to me that the other products, computers in particular, took a back seat to whatever iPhone developments were taking place. The laptops in particular are no bargain for the hardware specs, but the iMacs are great mid-level prepress machines. In fact, I’m using one right now.

When it comes to the user interface for Adobe products, I get what David is saying. As more features and parity between the two major operating systems has occurred, the interface is horrible. We have floating pallets and flyouts and drop down menus and all kinds of other distractions. I get it, there’s a lot more that can be done with software these days, but I honestly forget where some tools are and how to use them if I haven’t had to activate them for a while.

I think this is a drag on productivity. With each new version of Adobe creative products, there are keyboard shortcuts that are changed which can create errors. Mostly because you have spent 12 years using the same shortcuts, but in one upgrade cycle they’re lost and the time you spend retraining yourself is productivity lost.

Please don’t start me on the disaster that is Acrobat Pro and it’s overlay of redundant controls that already exist. It’s bad on the Mac side, even worse in the Windows implementation. More than once I’ve thought that Adobe should write its own OS, so that their products might have a better chance of working correctly. But then, who would want to pay for that?

I would like to find an all-in-one program like the old Ventura Publish or some of the later versions of PageMaker or FreeHand that allowed you to do more photo editing (for example) in the program you were in without having to bail out and do some minor function in Photoshop.

And maybe it’s just not possible to do that anymore, not due to some insidious plan to extract more money out of prepress operators. Maybe the OSes have so much stuff built into them that in order to get the lightweight feeling of 20 years ago we would have to strip them back down to that level.

On another note, depending upon what kind of graphics business you’re in, you have to use what your clients are using. I wasn’t originally a big fan of InDesign, but after a certain point the shift was clear and we stopped using Quark as everyday software. Again, David’s situation must be unique, as few commercial shops can dictate to their clients what software to use.

Several years back the shop I was working for expanded into a copy shop and we took on a lot more work from the general public. All the software many folks had was the MS Office Suite, and most of that business consisted of MS Publisher files. I didn’t want to, but I became the “go-to guy” on Publisher and I got pretty good at it. I don’t think the experience hurt me any, and it certainly gave me a broader perspective.

I am in the process of looking at new software as I don’t want to pay Adobe’s fees for use of the Creative Cloud. Since my PC laptop is my weapon of choice these days, I’m looking into Serif’s Affinity software range to see if it would meet my needs. If not, I may be looking into Corel again.

 

[Tim-Ellis]

Well Geozinger, I agree with you on almost everything you posted.

I got started about the time of Quark 4. Now for what we need Quark 4 would still do the trick. By the time we got to Quark 7 we agreed to stop renewing our ten licenses. £10,000 is a lot to pay for a whole heap of ..... features you will never use.

I don't need creative cloud storage. I don't need to animate anything or publish to web or iPad. Yet to get 14 licenses of Adobe CC with all the bits I need, I get a whole heap of other..... features I will never use. It's just money down the drain.

I think the model is all wrong. The suite needs to be more modular. Photoshop Elements was an attempt to make an app for hobbyist photographer. Not everyone one got on with it but for my work I don't need 90% of Photoshop. I'd like to pick the bits I need. Hell, I'd even pay a click charge per features (as long as live trace isn't too costly).


But I should say this. Don't let Adobe keyboard shortcuts get you down. You can edit them....

I think this is a drag on productivity. With each new version of Adobe creative products, there are keyboard shortcuts that are changed which can create errors. Mostly because you have spent 12 years using the same shortcuts, but in one upgrade cycle they’re lost and the time you spend retraining yourself is productivity lost.

This is from the Photoshop help page but it's same principle in the other apps

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/us...shortcuts.html

 

[Slammer]

I am in the process of looking at new software as I don’t want to pay Adobe’s fees for use of the Creative Cloud. Since my PC laptop is my weapon of choice these days, I’m looking into Serif’s Affinity software range to see if it would meet my needs. If not, I may be looking into Corel again.

Then I can assure you that Serif´s Affinity is the way to go, they are not quite there yet but going in the right direction, I have chucked CC out for my usages and slowly, albeit very slowly there are a few of our customers looking into Affinity too. The only fly in the soup is the lack of a layout program, rumor has it that there is something in the works but until then there is always Quark.

 

[geozinger]

@Tim-Ellis: I remember that the menus and shortcuts are re-configurable; in my instance I may work on several workstations (not mine) during the day. This is when the changing shortcuts become an issue for me.

However, I agree with your point about the CC needing to be more modular or having an ala-carte model of some kind. I only freelance for a few select clients, my daytime job keeps me plenty busy. Most commonly I would need access to Indy, Photoshop and Illy. I no longer care to fiddle with websites and am not planning on publishing my extensive (ha!) catalog on the web anytime soon. That said, if you need those capabilities on a daily basis, then the CC is a stunning value. But for what I do, $50.00/month is far too much for me to pay for what is essentially an after hours hobby nowadays. I can get MS Office 365 for $10/month, which gives me the full range of MS products including Publisher. And, I still do stuff in Publisher for one client. In this case the subscription is worth the money.

@Slammer: I had the beta for Affinity. I downloaded and ran it once a couple of days before I left for vacation. Came back to it two weeks later and the beta period had expired. Bummer. But, I did like what I saw, and will probably get it anyway. And yes, a page layout program would be extremely helpful.