Adobe's Creative Cloud Photography Price Test: Reverted Hike – Should Photographers Worry?

Adobe made waves earlier this month when it doubled the price of its Creative Cloud Photography plan–from $9.99/month to $19.99/month.

Soon after, the price reverted back to the original. And Adobe has assured its customers that it was just testing a new price.

But this begs the question:

Should photographers be concerned?

It’s not like we haven’t seen this before. Last year, Adobe announced price increases for a number of its CC products, though the Photography plan was spared. So the Photography plan – which includes Photoshop, Lightroom, and Lightroom Classic – remained an affordable deal for professional photographers.

But if Adobe is testing out a price increase, then it’s no doubt a real possibility for the future.

If that’s the case, would Lightroom and Photoshop be worth it?

The increased price did come with one benefit: Creative Cloud storage, which currently sits at 20GB, shot up to 1TB.
(It’s now back to 20GB.)

But how many photographers have been waiting for additional storage? For many photographers, the increased CC storage is worth little.

Maybe it’s time to start looking into other options.

In the past few years, a number of strong Photoshop and Lightroom contenders have been released–and at significantly lower price points.

For instance, Affinity Photo retails at a one-time payment of $49.99. It offers many of the same functions as Photoshop, including basic editing tools, layers, and some more sophisticated options, such as lens distortion corrections.

And ON1 Photo RAW is a neat alternative to Lightroom. For a single payment of $79.99, you get a combination of advanced photo editing and photo organization software. Plus, it comes with a set of excellent presets.

Photographers should also check out Luminar 3. This is a full-featured program, offering an excellent combination of basic editing options, local adjustments, and photo organization. All for a one-time price of $70.

A couple more options:

1. ACDSee Photo Studio Ultimate (for $8.90/month or a one-time fee of $84.95)
2. Exposure X4 (for a one-time fee of $119)

Here’s the bottom line:

With Adobe considering a Lightroom/Photoshop price hike, other options (which you can purchase for a one-time fee) have suddenly become far more enticing.

For those of you who aren’t willing to fork out the additional US$10 per month, take a look at these other options.

Just in case.