Listening to the Voices in My Head

It just keeps going on and on. I got this bull$hit email from them.

Hello Sandra,

Thank you for contacting Adobe support.
I am writing in reference to your case regarding your issue with Adobe application.

Please accept our sincere apology for all the inconvenience. We request you to provide your phone number and preferred time to contact you or contact us back on live support so that we can assist you on real time.

Please respond to this mail so that we can assist you further on your issue without any delay.

Thanks and regards,
Adobe Support.

My reply:

Why bother? I have already sent you one of the invoices I could find (still waiting for reply from three other sellers, who are graciously checking their records to see if they can find the sale tome, but as they are between 5 and 11 years ago it's not looking too good.) and I got bullcrap about how I have to contact Amazon (reseller) and I did. Then I was told to contact the Amazon seller, and I did. THEN the Amazon seller told me that if the installation discs are in working order (they are) to contact Adobe. And THEN you tell me there is no record of the sale with Adobe. No $hit Sherlock.

Because I live in Australia (I moved from the U.S.) Adobe was charging double for the products, even when U.S. and AUD were at parity. I refused to be skinned, so ordered the products from the U.S. and had them shipped TO me. And the when each and every one arrived, I would install it, activate it, follow the link to the registration page.

What I find passing strange is that the ONLY things missing from my Adobe account are each and every boxed set I purchased from other than Adobe, when I know I registered PSE 9, PSE10, CS3E CS5E, CS6 Master Collection. I had screen capped the page, but it's gone due to a massive HDD/System crash about 5 years ago, along with digital invoices I had. But I wasn't worried, because I had all my products listed on my Adobe account..... oh yeah, the same account that had all my Boxed products 'disappeared'.

Not saying I am going to do this, but I know there are ways to hack and crack, but I don't want to, nor should I have to, because I LEGALLY BOUGHT AND REGISTERED MY PRODUCTS! The same products you say are not mine, or are mine but is a student teacher edition (No, I have seen what Student/Teacher/EDU edition boxes are, and mine aren't.) Mine are full on, genuine one person purchased (me) . One would think that if I wasn't the person who owned the software, I wouldn't be bothering to rant/rave/vent or even CONTACT you regarding anything about it. But no. To hell with the fact that I bought legit boxed editions from a store, just keep parroting the bull$hit. Perchance to force me to subscribe? Ain't gonna work. I'll switch to On1PhotoRaw and Affinity, or maybe even Corel, ALSO bought by me, boxed/disc editions.

A VERY Angry Adobe Product buyer and user.

I found one of my invoices for an Adobe product, and sent it to them, as proof, that "See, yes, I did buy it!" I told them, over and over, that I didn't buy it as a digital download, but as a Boxed Version.

Their response: We have gone through the Email that you sent to us but would like to inform you that kindly contact the Amazon as this order was purchased from Amazon, because in our system there is no any order details found in our system that you are talking about.

I told them I didn't order it from Adobe, I told them I had registered my software when I popped open the box when it arrived. I told them I did same thing with CS6 Master Collection, and CS5E, and CS3E. It's doesn't matter where it was legally purchased from!

I think even if I do get a copy of the invoice for CS6 Master Collection, they're going to brush me off with the same excuse. No record of sale with Adobe, so tough shit.

And they wonder why people pirate their software.

*spelled that way as to not offend the nannyware of some blogging sites.

And have had some sleep, I am revisiting my Adobe complaint.

Over the past 10+ years, I have purchased "Boxed" aka store bought versions of Adobe products. CS3 E, CS5 E, CS6 Master Collection, Photoshop Elements (9, 10, 11). I dutifully made an Adobe account, registered each and every purchase without fail, or incident. I had taken a screencap of all my products listed. I think that vanished because of a system restore, but I haven't given up looking for it.

The only product I purchased directly from the Adobe site as a download was CS6 E.

When my CS5 after years of no problems threw out the "Trial has expired", I was "whohuhwha?". Thinking it had to do with hardware upgrade (motherboard, HHD etc) I typed in my CS5 serial that was on the box. Then picked up my 'qualifying product' for the CS5 upgrade, typing in the CS3 E serial, only to get "Invalid Serial Number". *boggle*

I headed to my Adobe account, login to make sure I had the serial numbers correct, and then only find CS6 E listed. WTF? I checked every link, and even started a (useless) chat session. I ended up getting CS5 E working again without resorting to 'convincing' it to work if you get my drift.

So then, the support chat went to "Where did all my other products go?" This is where I am calling "Bullshit" on Adobe. Suddenly, after 5, 7 and 11 years, all my non-downloaded software are suddenly not mine, or never purchased, or don't exist. I gave up on that support session.

Started one with Adobe Customer Care on Twitter. The story changed. This time, I was told my products were teacher/educational ones. Uhh, no. Packaging of those would clearly have Student/Teacher Labels, and guess what? Mine don't. I even sent photographic proof of that. Then the ACC on Twitter said "Send your invoices as proof". I looked, and looked, and looked. Paypal and online bank records only go back to 2015. That's three years. My purchases were 5, 7, and 11 years ago.

Wing believes, seeing as the problem first started with old CS3, then CS5 and now CS6, that it's Adobe's way of painting people in a corner, forcing them to rent their software, instead of using the old tried and true. And remember, only the store bought hardcopy versions registered with Adobe disappeared from my Adobe account.

Yes, I know there are ways to 'convince' these programs to work, but there should be no need for me to resort to that as I bought and paid for mine.

Now that Lightroom has gone subscription only, no longer offering a stand alone, many people are looking for alternatives again.

So far, I find AlienSkin Exposure 3, On1 Photo Raw, and Topaz Studio to be the strongest contenders. Exposure 3 and On1 have a feature that Topaz doesn't at this time. The ability to have different versions, virtual copies, of the same image, with different edits, without filling your HDD with multiple image files.

On1 had more tools/Effects than AlienSkin, but AlienSkin works faster on older computers, or with machine with only 16gb of memory.

All three have plugins that work with CS6 (there is a way to get them to work with CS5. Download trial version of Photoshop CC, install On1/Alienskin/Topaz, and then copy/paste the plugins from the CC plugin folder to CS5 plugin folder. If you get any error message about a specific DLL missing, copy it from the Photoshop CC directory into the CS5 directory. Nothing says you have to uninstall the CC trial version, so leave it there to install updates)

My personal favorite is On1 Photo Raw, followed very closely by AlienSkin Exposure 3. I do like editing my RAW photos with these two, and then in Photoshop, using the Topaz Studio/Labs plugs to add extras.

Or be forced to double up on HD space by converting everything to DNGs.

Alienskin Exposure X2

After installation, go to Edit/Preferences and select what photo editor you want to punt the Raw edited image to. (Used CS5 for this example) And you can select what format to export. PSD, TIFF or JPG.

It does non-destructive edits to your images, and has a wider library of available editing tools than Adobe Camera Raw.  Here's one image, that I adjusted clarity, brightness, whites,  and am applying a 'Bokeh' edit. 



Right click on image, and click on editor you configured X2 to use






Since I had done all my RAW edits in X2, I chose "Save Image" option in the bottom left corner, saved it as a JPG, then opened it in CS5 to continue.





EDIT: It seems with CS5 you have to EDIT IT and have preferences set to TIFF file. It will open up Adobe Camera Raw 6.7.1, then you have to select SAVE IMAGE on bottom left corner and save it as a high res JPG, as it's Photoshop itself that won't open the TIFF/PSD/JPG directly from X2.

However if you're using CS6, this doesn't seem to be an issue.