King of the creatives

Everyone likes to feel like he or she is creative. Whether you’re a photographer, an accountant or a plumber, artistry can found in practically any vocation. Still, the common definition of creativity looks to visual and auditory mediums such as paintings and jazz for the truly talented, and if one tech company has that segment of imagination cornered, it’s Adobe.

Twenty-six years ago, Photoshop was invented, and the world was forever changed. Prior to its arrival, coloring, editing and perfecting images was mainly a darkroom task. Photoshop changed that forever. Today, Photoshop dominates the digital imaging world with millions of photographers, designers and creators using the software. It is so popular, “photoshopped” has become a noun for an obviously-doctored image.

As popular as Photoshop is, after Adobe purchased it in 1988, the applications it inspired and spawned changed the creative world. Beyond Photoshop, Adobe commands the creative industry with programs like InDesign, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Dreamweaver, Audition and many, many more. It is an incredibly powerful lineup of software, and up until last year, purchasing all of Adobe’s products would have cost you thousands.

Today you can download virtually every Adobe tool for anywhere between $9 a month for students to $50 dollars a month for new Adobe customers. Starting in May 2013, Adobe restructured its pricing model around its “Creative Cloud,” an online subscription service that pushed customers to a reasonable monthly cost instead of a huge, one-time expenditure. The web-based subscription model is actually a very popular setup in tech today. Companies leverage fast, ubiquitous Internet connections to deliver software via the web, a model known as “Software as a Service,” or SaaS.

While Adobe has sold more than 100 million copies of its software, only 1.4 million users have migrated to the Creative Cloud, with many citing the monthly cost as what is holding them back. So until Creative Cloud overthrows the creative world, artisan accountants and bespoke plumbers will have to wait for recognition. CV

Patrick Boberg is a central Iowa creative media specialist. Follow him on Twitter @PatBoBomb.