Refusing and Resisting Adobe's Creative Cloud

Credit: http://www.headlesshollow.com/

It will be over a year since Adobe chose to rent their Photoshop program and I have not given in one millimeter. I'm still retouching pictures and teach—albeit much less since our industry in the United States has tanked and I've been spending more time on Black Rhino Illustration. I will continue using CS5 until it breaks or I find a better alternative. I have a copy of CS6 on-hand when that time comes.

CS5 is fine with me. Old is never bad. Reruns of Columbo, Star Trek and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea are just as entertaining as anything else I can find on television or at the public library's DVD section. Creativity isn't dependent on tools in some nebulous "Cloud" of relays, microchips and servers. Creativity is the use of the imagination or original ideas in the production of an artistic work.

I live a humble lifestyle with very happy children in a home and community some people around the world will never be able to experience. I own my home, I don't own a car and I don't have credit card or student loan debt. That lifestyle isn't wealthy nor does it place me in the category of middle class. Since 1999 I have built most of Photo Grafix and my adult life on the quote from Napoleon Hill's Law of Success: "No sacrifice is too great to avoid the misery of debt."

$10-20-30 per month or any other software rental scheme equates to debt. I don't rent my screwdriver, sofa chair, TV, pitchfork or compost bin. I refuse to rent my software or computer. To my customers and students who might not work with me because of this attitude, that's your choice. My choice is to sacrifice to avoid the misery of debt.