Photoshop 2021 is out.

[RichardC]

Just leave PS2020 installed and install 2021 alongside. Best of both worlds.

Reminds me, it's probably safe to uninstall PS2019 now.

 

[Mike Wingate]

The 2021 update runs with my Nik Silver Efex. Cloud edit. GX80 with P25mm f1.7mm

Subscribe to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

 

[John King]

I'm with you, Teemu ...

Seems I don't have a choice ...

The standard dishonest and probably collusive practices now blocks the Bridge and Photoshop updates from working with Win 7 Pro 64. This effectively forces an "upgrade" to Windows 10, which will undoubtedly cause problems with drivers and software for all kinds of peripherals ...

We are also still using Office 2003. It is stable, even robust, compared with later releases, and contains Outlook.

Same with our CS5 and CS6 Premium licences. Both contain Acrobat Pro which I use on an almost daily basis.

So I will stay with Win 7 Pro until I can set up a test PC running Win 10 Pro to check what I'm really going to have problems with, software and driver wise.

Of course, Adobe's next "upgrade" will probably be to make ACR incompatible with Win 7 Pro. They have done this before with ACR and Windows XP Pro ...

Dishonest mongrels, the lot of them.

 

[Angus Gibbins]

First observation on the colour grading tool is that it's tricky with lots of variables.

Second observation - you will almost certainly want to reset the colour wheels and start over.

That's colour grading in a nutshell

Just leave PS2020 installed and install 2021 alongside. Best of both worlds.

I just pull the trigger regardless, they have gotten a lot better, and it's pretty easy to rollback to a previous version in Creative Cloud if need be.

 

[Angus Gibbins]

Seems I don't have a choice ...

The standard dishonest and probably collusive practices now blocks the Bridge and Photoshop updates from working with Win 7 Pro 64. This effectively forces an "upgrade" to Windows 10, which will undoubtedly cause problems with drivers and software for all kinds of peripherals ...

We are also still using Office 2003. It is stable, even robust, compared with later releases, and contains Outlook.

Same with our CS5 and CS6 Premium licences. Both contain Acrobat Pro which I use on an almost daily basis.

So I will stay with Win 7 Pro until I can set up a test PC running Win 10 Pro to check what I'm really going to have problems with, software and driver wise.

Of course, Adobe's next "upgrade" will probably be to make ACR incompatible with Win 7 Pro. They have done this before with ACR and Windows XP Pro ...

Dishonest mongrels, the lot of them.

Windows 7 has been EOL for 9 months now. I don't begrudge them for dropping support for legacy operating systems.

 

[John King]

@Angus Gibbins Win 7 Pro 64 is still supported commercially by Microsoft. Just not for us 'ordinary people'.

Says it all, really, Angus ...

Some figures from September 2020:

https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide/

 

[Angus Gibbins]

@Angus Gibbins Win 7 Pro 64 is still supported commercially by Microsoft. Just not for us 'ordinary people'.

That's extended support and maintenance though, I've worked in places that has been on those programs before and they're bloody expensive (think anywhere between 6-8 figures). They're for the militaries and NASAs of the world (legacy, inhouse high security and complex applications that can't be migrated or updated at the drop of a hat), and even then, those applications that can't be migrated are usually run in an virtualised or isolated environment and not for day to day desktop use.

Policies at that level dictate that every piece of software MUST have a valid support and maintenance contract, so negotiatings for that level of agreement are high.

They're not for people who don't want to upgrade to the new version of Office or Photoshop.

 

[stevedo]

I worked at Microsoft in the UK for nearly 20 years in technical sales. I had customers who had legacy apps that they would\could not migrate to newer versions of Windows. They often paid handsomely for tailor made extended support. @Angus Gibbins is totally correct in what he says.

For reference, here's the official Microsoft line regarding support for Windows 7 (expired January 14th 2020).
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...7, it will no longer receive security updates.

 

[Angus Gibbins]

I worked at Microsoft in the UK for nearly 20 years in technical sales. I had customers who had legacy apps that they would\could not migrate to newer versions of Windows. They often paid handsomely for tailor made extended support. @Angus Gibbins is totally correct in what he says.

The general scenario we're told is generally you go on them only when the cost of migrating, reegineering or discontinuing the application exceeds the cost of the contract by a long shot.

Microsoft don't want people on them, and CIOs don't want people on them.

 

[Angus Gibbins]

For reference, here's the official Microsoft line regarding support for Windows 7 (expired January 14th 2020).
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...7, it will no longer receive security updates.

That's exactly what you're paying for too, you're not paying because users don't want to change.

General government, military and enterprise IT policy states that EVERY single piece of software and hardware (even something like a spelling/grammar checker plugin in Chrome) MUST have a valid support and maintence contract. If an operation takes place on an asset without one, then that business is liable if something goes wrong (say an engineering firm builds a bridge with an EOL or unsupported version of CAD and that bridge falls down 10 years later as a result of a bug in a load bearing calculation when the bridge was designed. The firm is now liable for that software's error, because they were using it without a support contract. With a support contract, the onus is on the software vendor to have corrected the bug and they're liable).

Essentially you're paying for:
a) security updates.
b) to absolve your firm of legal rammifications if something goes wrong as a result of software errors.

 

[John King]

@stevedo and @Angus Gibbins

Let's assume for the moment that I'm not part of the CIA or NASA ... .

Allowing my scanner software to run, or Office 2003, is somewhat unlikely to cause either WW3 or the latest Mars Rover to stop working. That is to say, extreme cases do not make the rules, either in Law or commerce.

I'm definitely not into conspiracy theories, but there is a lot of corporate behaviour that will not stand up to the most mild scrutiny. e.g. that of the immediate past head of Australia Post, or that of the head of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).

Or that of Adobe and Microsoft ...

 

[Angus Gibbins]

@stevedo and @Angus Gibbins

Let's assume for the moment that I'm not part of the CIA or NASA ... .

Allowing my scanner software to run, or Office 2003, is somewhat unlikely to cause either WW3 or the latest Mars Rover to stop working. That is to say, extreme cases do not make the rules, either in Law or commerce.

I'm definitely not into conspiracy theories, but there is a lot of corporate behaviour that will not stand up to the most mild scrutiny. e.g. that of the immediate past head of Australia Post, or that of the head of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC).

Or that of Adobe and Microsoft ...

Generally they'll stop supporting unsupported OSes to take advantage of newer frameworks that aren't compatible with older OSes, reduce future technical debt and optimise their code bases. They can't support every OS forever, or their code bases would be massive (Lightroom Classic and Photoshop are already big enough bohemeths as it is).

If you don't want to upgrade there's nothing stopping you running your current environment as it is.

I don't think Adobe and Microsoft are highly ethical companies, but they don't EOL products or drop support for EOL products from other vendors for the sake of screwing you.

 

[John King]

I don't think Adobe and Microsoft are highly ethical companies, but they don't EOL products or drop support for EOL products from other vendors for the sake of screwing you.

Understatement of the year, Angus?

Adobe (in particular) employs some brilliant programmers, then there are the ones who link the modules together! FCOL, it is almost impossible to bugger up a SQL database, but they manage to in Bridge ...

Microsoft do not even know how to set the default VM parameters! They never have ...

MS have taken a really slick and robust OS (NT) and turned it into a bloatware, resource hungry slug. The entirety of NT Server 4 shipped on about 300 MB of a CDR.

 

[Angus Gibbins]

MS have taken a really slick and robust OS (NT) and turned it into a bloatware, resource hungry slug. The entirety of NT Server 4 shipped on about 300 MB of a CDR.

That's called progress. We have better, faster and cheaper technology and bandwidth to run bigger, more secure and more fully featured OSes now.

It has gone back the other way too though, want a lightweight, low cost server platform? That's why we have Windows Server Core and why the industry is slowly moving away from dedicated servers in favour of containerisation and microservices (such as Kubernetes and Docker).

 

[John King]

That's called progress.

And sometimes there is genuine progress, Angus.

However, much of what passes for 'progress' is actually 'churn', at best, and sometimes just dishonest behaviour ...

You ought to see the blinding speed of my c.1994 multi-user accounting package on relatively modern hardware.

I sometimes uncharitably think that young programmers are incapable of writing tight code, or even know what a dual pass compiler is, FTM.

 

[Angus Gibbins]

I sometimes uncharitably think that young programmers are incapable of writing tight code, or even know what a dual pass compiler is, FTM.

There's always been lazy, incompetent and incapable people though. That's how we end up with middle management

 

[John King]

if it weren't so serious @Angus Gibbins ...

Angus, most places I have worked, they end up as the senior management ...

That accounting package was originally 16 bit code, running under a DOS VM, with a 32 bit Windows front end and a Btrieve database. It runs in an emulated 64K block memory model, and it is still blindingly fast!

 

[PeeBee]

I just pull the trigger regardless, they have gotten a lot better, and it's pretty easy to rollback to a previous version in Creative Cloud if need be.

I'm usually trigger happy too when it comes to updates, but in this case it broke my NIK software, so my advice to keep both 2020 and 2021 was specifically for those using NIK 2 or earlier, at least until there's a fix or they upgrade.

I've not had many direct problems with Adobe updates, only with the NIK plug-ins

 

[PeeBee]

The 2021 update runs with my Nik Silver Efex. Cloud edit. GX80 with P25mm f1.7mmView attachment 853938

Yeah, I could do global NIK edits without any issues, It was only when using the brush tool to apply to a selected area.

 

[Angus Gibbins]

I'm usually trigger happy too when it comes to updates, but in this case it broke my NIK software, so my advice to keep both 2020 and 2021 was specifically for those using NIK 2 or earlier, at least until there's a fix or they upgrade.

I've not had many direct problems with Adobe updates, only with the NIK plug-ins

Yup. And for the most part if Adobe put out a show stopping bug they'll patch it soon enough.

Good to know about NIK. I've been pondering purchasing it but as LR Classic gets more and more powerful I find myself jumping into PS less and less.