Adobe to remove Pantone books from Creative Cloud

[Dov Isaacs]

So basically doing the same thing that Adobe did with their subscription plan.

To be very clear, I am absolutely not trying to defend Adobe's subscription-based pricing model. I am not currently an employee of Adobe and even when I was, I was not involved in any pricing or product packaging decisions.

However, to be fair, users of Adobe's applications were effectively on a rental/subscription basis with those applications long before the subscription model was formally rolled out. Unless you were content to continue using an existing “perpetual license” release indefinitely, you needed to buy what turned out to be annual new releases in order to maintain compatibility with new hardware and operating system environments (especially with Macintosh systems), much less compatibility with content generated by other users of these applications who did buy upgrades and were using new features yielding content that was incompatible with older software versions.

Pantone's change of business model with regards to how their swatch L*A*B* were bundled with applications would be more analogous to a hypothetical situation in which Monotype no longer allowed Microsoft or Apple to bundle Arial and Times New Roman with Windows and MacOS respectively and required each user of those operating systems to subscribe to a plug-in which made those fonts (and others previously bundled with the operating system) dynamically available to the operating system and applications going forward. (Oops, maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas! )

- Dov

 

[jwheeler]

However, to be fair, users of Adobe's applications were effectively on a rental/subscription basis with those applications long before the subscription model was formally rolled out. Unless you were content to continue using an existing “perpetual license” release indefinitely, you needed to buy what turned out to be annual new releases in order to maintain compatibility with new hardware and operating system environments (especially with Macintosh systems), much less compatibility with content generated by other users of these applications who did buy upgrades and were using new features yielding content that was incompatible with older software versions.

When I worked in a small commercial print shop maybe 15 years, it was essential to update with every release so we could open customer's files without asking them to backsave to legacy versions. However, as customers got better at providing PDF's, having the native AI or INDD files became less necessary, and we could get by without upgrading versions for a while.

As a freelance designer working from home, I was perfectly content with old DVD installs of Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign (maybe CS3 or CS6?) on my old PC and never felt compelled to upgrade. I saw the features that came out in new versions that would have been nice to have, but I managed without them long enough that I was happy to save the money.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

When I worked in a small commercial print shop maybe 15 years, it was essential to update with every release so we could open customer's files without asking them to backsave to legacy versions. However, as customers got better at providing PDF's, having the native AI or INDD files became less necessary, and we could get by without upgrading versions for a while.

As a freelance designer working from home, I was perfectly content with old DVD installs of Photoshop/Illustrator/InDesign (maybe CS3 or CS6?) on my old PC and never felt compelled to upgrade. I saw the features that came out in new versions that would have been nice to have, but I managed without them long enough that I was happy to save the money.

Certainly, high quality, properly prepared PDF/X-4 files (live transparency and ICC color management - no premature conversion to CMYK) did wonders in terms of print service providers being able to reliably produce printed output corresponding to the intent of the designers using InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Of course, the key here is properly prepared and the need for designers using such software to learn how to use it properly.

No argument in terms of your experience with using older versions of the CS software for your own use, especially with Windows which until Windows 8 and 10 was fairly compatible with older software application versions. This was certainly not the experience for those using the Apple ecosystem. New operating system releases and new hardware as well as two complete changes of processor architecture (PowerPC => Intel => Apple ARM-based M chips) caused chaos for application software developers, often requiring major subsystem rewrites. Recent Windows updates have started getting problematic for application compatibility as well, especially in the areas of font support, printing, etc. (I've had to deal with the problems of both architectures!) Part of the problem is that users expected application developers to offer unlimited “free” upgrades to applications to deal with the constantly changing underlying environments. Such “free” upgrades just for compatibility with OS and hardware platform updates were economically untenable for software developers and are problematic with accounting requirements in many jurisdictions including the United States (it is a concept known as “revenue recognition)!

- Dov

 

[Joe]

To be very clear, I am absolutely not trying to defend Adobe's subscription-based pricing model. I am not currently an employee of Adobe and even when I was, I was not involved in any pricing or product packaging decisions.

However, to be fair, users of Adobe's applications were effectively on a rental/subscription basis with those applications long before the subscription model was formally rolled out. Unless you were content to continue using an existing “perpetual license” release indefinitely, you needed to buy what turned out to be annual new releases in order to maintain compatibility with new hardware and operating system environments (especially with Macintosh systems), much less compatibility with content generated by other users of these applications who did buy upgrades and were using new features yielding content that was incompatible with older software versions.

Pantone's change of business model with regards to how their swatch L*A*B* were bundled with applications would be more analogous to a hypothetical situation in which Monotype no longer allowed Microsoft or Apple to bundle Arial and Times New Roman with Windows and MacOS respectively and required each user of those operating systems to subscribe to a plug-in which made those fonts (and others previously bundled with the operating system) dynamically available to the operating system and applications going forward. (Oops, maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas! )

- Dov

That is 100% true. In the old days you could skip a version or two and save money like in the CS2 days. By CS3, 5, 5.5, and 6 Adobe had closed that loophole so if you saved money by skipping a version you lost those savings when you finally did upgrade because the version of the upgrade was almost exactly what the price would have been had you upgraded each version as it was released. Also development was slower back in those days. They didn't have major version upgrades every 12 months (or less in some software apps) like they do now. The subscription model just left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouth. I guess because it is a never ending subscription. Even though staying updated in the old non-subscription model was a never ending payment system. It just wasn't due every month.

 

[chriscozi]

And lest we forget - because the designers are about to face the challenge of "learning something new"
Today an article appeared:
"CreativePro Weekly | Pantone Color Libraries Are Leaving the Adobe Apps"

 

[jwheeler]

And lest we forget - because the designers are about to face the challenge of "learning something new"
Today an article appeared:
"CreativePro Weekly | Pantone Color Libraries Are Leaving the Adobe Apps"

FYI, your link just goes to the CreativePro homepage, not the article. Here is the link directly to the article. This was shared back on post 16 of this thread.

 

[chriscozi]

FYI, your link just goes to the CreativePro homepage, not the article. Here is the link directly to the article. This was shared back on post 16 of this thread.

Thank you. I just got the email from them and didn't check the dates or references.

 

[michaelejahn]

As much as you hate Adobe, this whole situation really can't be put on Adobe's shoulders. If not immediately, it will affect every other application which currently directly supplies Pantone color definitions.

Adobe didn't desire or request that the Pantone content be removed from Adobe products. And certainly, Pantone's new service / subscription / whatever-you-want-to-call-it was not in reaction to a move by Adobe. If Pantone simply won't license the content to Adobe for unlimited distribution and decides to change its business model to one of “a direct subscription model with the end users” there is really nothing that Adobe can do about that.

And yes, this situation is a real problem for anyone who has counted on Pantone definitions for any colors and especially spot colors (i.e., colorants beyond process CMYK using either specific spot colors or simulating same via Lab definitions and additional inks).

Please direct your concerns directly to Pantone.

I - for one - do not "hate" any software developer - everyone is trying to make a living while building things that solve a problem and are sustainable. Thank FSM ( Flying Spaghetti Monster ) that Adobe supports named color spaces so we can exchange PDF files that contain "what ever you wanna name that orange color". Pretty excited about importing CxF/X4 data into Adobe InDesign and embedding CxF/X4 into PDF 2.0 files. I can totally respect that fact that Adobe can't really explain what will be done as this is fluid, but to be candid, I don't think we need Adobe to "bundle" and Pantone anything for us to carry on - it is simply a named color space and PDF has supported that for well over a decade.

Thanks for sharing @Dov Isaacs !

 

[wonderings]

I - for one - do not "hate" any software developer - everyone is trying to make a living while building things that solve a problem and are sustainable. Thank FSM ( Flying Spaghetti Monster ) that Adobe supports named color spaces so we can exchange PDF files that contain "what ever you wanna name that orange color". Pretty excited about importing CxF/X4 data into Adobe InDesign and embedding CxF/X4 into PDF 2.0 files. I can totally respect that fact that Adobe can't really explain what will be done as this is fluid, but to be candid, I don't think we need Adobe to "bundle" and Pantone anything for us to carry on - it is simply a named color space and PDF has supported that for well over a decade.

Thanks for sharing @Dov Isaacs !

I think the issue for many, I include myself, is that this has been something integrated with the software for as long as I can remember. Yes I know I can make a spot colour, save it as a Pantone name so when making plates the plate is labeled correctly. It is a change of thinking as this has been included for so long and now in order to keep work how you were working you have a new subscription to pay for. For basic offset this is a simple and basic tool that requires very little from me outside of typing in the number of the swatch I want and away I go. I do not need to play with colour sliders to make something even in the same family colour wise for PDF proofs. It is basic and helpful that will now be replaced with paying monthly/yearly or manually creating spot colours when needed. I don't know how it works in the back end between Adobe and Pantone, they must have been paying something to them but they have obviously seen that Adobe can pay less without it and Pantone can possibly make more charging the numbers who actually use them. Just another subscription to add to the list, not happy about it, I am sure we will go with the pantone yearly fee here for the most basic uses.

I wonder if someone will take the take and put together a custom swatch library containing he basic Pantone U and C library that will get passed around free in some pantone black market

 

[chriscozi]

I think the issue for many, I include myself, is that this has been something integrated with the software for as long as I can remember. Yes I know I can make a spot colour, save it as a Pantone name so when making plates the plate is labeled correctly. It is a change of thinking as this has been included for so long and now in order to keep work how you were working you have a new subscription to pay for. For basic offset this is a simple and basic tool that requires very little from me outside of typing in the number of the swatch I want and away I go. I do not need to play with colour sliders to make something even in the same family colour wise for PDF proofs. It is basic and helpful that will now be replaced with paying monthly/yearly or manually creating spot colours when needed. I don't know how it works in the back end between Adobe and Pantone, they must have been paying something to them but they have obviously seen that Adobe can pay less without it and Pantone can possibly make more charging the numbers who actually use them. Just another subscription to add to the list, not happy about it, I am sure we will go with the pantone yearly fee here for the most basic uses.

I wonder if someone will take the take and put together a custom swatch library containing he basic Pantone U and C library that will get passed around free in some pantone black market

You can keep your current library files . . . . ;-)

 

[Dov Isaacs]

See my posting on the thread at https://printplanet.com/threads/pan...moved-from-future-adobe-updates.291824/page-3 for more updates on this issue!

- Dov

 

[libordeath.com]

A new report on the situation, "Color Me Frustrated: Users React to Adobe, Pantone Rift Over PMS Libraries," can be dowloaded at https://pialliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Color-Me-Frustrated-Adobe-Pantone-Rift.pdf or perused at Color Me Frustrated: Users React to Adobe, Pantone Rift Over PMS Libraries - Printing Industries Alliance. It was written on behalf of Printing Industries Alliance, a trade association that has received numerous inquiries from its members about what has happened and how to respond.