That was very sneaky of you, DxO

After using NIK software for so long (close to 20 years, through three different companies, NIK, Google, and DxO) when an actual update to Viveza and Silver EfexPro, I went to the download page, saw this small graphic, eye bending colors with no real cohesion, it meant nothing to me really. More on that later.

I downloaded it, installed it, bought it, as I had no reason not to (again more on that later) and activated it.

Now, I still use Adobe CS6 Extended. It works great, and all the major players plugins (On1, Topaz, Exposure) work with it.

Here's "More On That Later" - I fired up CS6, tried Viveza3, and got "Not enough Ram" error. Whohuhwha?

I started the older than CS6 version of Lightroom, and Viveza3 and SilverEfex Pro worked perfectly.
So, I tried it again in my newer than the Lightroom version CS6 and still got the Not Enough Ram message.

I send off a support request.

Turns out that small graphic on their sale/download page, if blown up 5 or 6x is legible. Colors are still eye-watering, though. Sneaky SOBs no longer allow CS6 and DxO NIK 4 (a misnomer, as only a few of the plugins have truly been updated)

As for then v3 of Viveza and Silver EfexPro: bloated, clunky, and next to impossible to figure out how to use. In my opinion, it was as if they tried to keep the old workflow and jammed it together with other brands work flow (*coughOn1cough*)

Good thing for me I had the last version of DxO NIK v3 installation file saved. I uninstalled v4, reinstalled v3, and all is well with the world.

Since I stupidly presumed that the 'updated' version would work with my current editing program, I activated it. No refund for me. I hope they have a nice lunch on me.

My opinion: Keep NIK v3x as is, and use other software to get what you need. Hey, since their new version of Viveza and SilverEfex Pro looks a lot like On1, how about just getting On1?

Adobe Drama Llama

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

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.

To sum up the Adobe Dilemma:

Adobe: Contact Amazon

Amazon: Contact Seller

Seller: Contact Adobe.

What this boils down to is if you have purchased your older Adobe product from a reseller, and not as a direct download, your product no longer exists and you screwed if you need help with it.  Even when you have the original invoices from said purchases, Adobe will reply that THEY have no record of your purchase.

Well, no shit Sherlock, because it was a boxed/hardcopy version, not a digital download.

Boxed version of CS3E with CS5E upgrade.

Boxed version of CS6 Master Collection.

Hey Adobe, fukc* you

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.

I am more than a bit stubborn

I managed to track down the seller I bought Adobe CS6 Master Collection from. I am optimistically (stupidly?) hopeful that his sales records go back that far.

I found the invoice for Photoshop Elements 10 and sent that along.  I will have to go through some laptops and back up drives to find more information.

You would think they would get it, that someone hammering away at them, sending them information piecemeal would be telling them the truth. A pirate/thief would just hack and crack the problems I'm having and be done with it. But no...

Now that I’m not falling asleep at the keyboard

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.

Finally contacted Adobe

Regarding how CS5 kicked up "Trial has expired" message after 5 years of using it.

This just gets even more bizarre than my CS3 serial suddenly not a valid license number!  It seems all my adobe products that weren't purchased as downloaded programs from the Adobe site have been wiped from my account!

And even better, I have been told that my now missing Adobe products are registered so a different email address?? WTF??!! I have had the same email address for 16 years! I've bought and registered the Adobe products 5, 7 and ll years ago!

Wing of the mind that I am not going to get any real help, because I can't find invoices/receipts for software I bought, 7, 5 and 11 years ago, that I properly registered with Adobe when I got them, as a way to paint me into a corner to rent Adobe products if I have another problem.

Nope, I will 'convince' the software to play nice if I have to, I will NOT rent their products.

With the last Adobe product going subscription only

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.

Seriously, what the hell

I have Adobe CS5 Extended. I have had it for a long time. I upgraded it from Adobe CS3 Extended.  For years, I have been using it without any problems.  Although I have CS6E, I use CS5 to tutor those who have it, and to test plug ins to see if they will work with earlier versions.

Today, I started it up and it says "NOT A VALID LICENSE NUMBER".  WTF?  Ok, figuring it was a system hiccup, I get both boxes with the license/serial numbers.  I put in the one for CS5E. All good.  Then it wants the serial for qualifying product, CS3 E.  Invalid serial number.  I double checked to make sure I didn't mistype. Nope, but the interface still says invalid serial number. I type it in again, STILL invalid number.

I head off to Adobe site, to my account to check to make sure all my info is correct.  Imagine my surprise when the ONLY product listed is ONE instance of CS6E.  Bizarre considering I have CS6 Master Suite, too.  And CS5, and CS3, and 4 different versions of Photoshop Elements.

Seeing no way to rectify this problem myself, I start up help chat. Was told it would be a 4 minute wait. Ok, no problem.  Then it said 3 minute wait. Good, good. Then it jumped to 20 minute wait. Huh?   Then an hour.  Then down to 15 minutes.  Then back up to an hour.

I don't have time to futz around waiting.  Let's just say I got it working again. I look at it this way. I legally own my copies of CS3E and CS5E. If Adobe doesn't want it to play nice, I, like a good mommy, will MAKE it play nice.

Another way to not be forced to rent Adobe CC

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.

I should have been a bit more careful with Adobe Update

My own fault, I should have double, triple checked, but I didn't expect the old style adobe application manager to update my Adobe Acrobat Pro X to AcrobatDC aka Crappy Cloud .  I know they're out to make money off of renting their software, but this is rather underhanded.

Of course NOW ProX won't even launch, and I have already run the entire trouble shooting gamut.

I really do NOT want to have to uninstall the entire Creative Suite Master collection to fix this, but I have a sinking feeling that might be exactly what I will end up having to do.

I posted about Adobe CS5 reading a Canon 5DS file

On my old netbook.  Well,  here you go! This is the finished edited in CS5 jpg, from the CR2 file from the Canon 5DS

 

CS5 Bridge: Note the image in the preview, and the information below the preview.

Edited in CS5.

But now, I get “Unknown file format”

 

Even if this was some sort of compu-fluke, it proves that Adobe could easily provide Adobe Camera Raw update for CS5.

Although I am quite sure Adobe will deny it

I just updated CS6 Extended and Bridge that goes with it.

Now, for the past 3 years, Adobe CS6 Bridge has been glacially slow loading thumbnails, and even if you worked in one folder, when you closed Bridge, and reopened it later it would treat it as a new import, grinding away at reading files, generating thumbnails.

I downloaded and applied the new updates.  Then reset Bridge to factory default (something I do with every update) and suddenly CS6 Bridge is loading files/thumbnails as fast as CS5 did.

Not quite believing it, I opened a folder I knew had 300+ CR2 files. It generated thumbnails in less than 15 seconds.  Closed Bridge, and reopened it. It opened to the last closed folder, and everything was immediately there. No "building criteria" stalling, no rebuilding thumbnails.

Now, after 3 years of telling me it was something *I* was doing wrong, and something wrong with my computer, they fixed something in it, and just passed it off as a typical update.  Schmucks.  Yes, I am grateful they fixed the problem, but still pissed off that it took them three friggin' years to do it!

Once more into the breach.. for some, not for me!

Adobe has come out with Creative Cloud 2014.  Of course, they didn't warn anyone that Creative Cloud 2013 (for want of better label0 plugins might not, or more likely, will not work with their latest and greatest.

People who had CS6E/CS6 had the same problem.  I worked at it until I solved some of the "plug-ins for CS6 will not be updated to work in CC."  I had this problem with CS5 to CS6, and by spotting that the plugins worked in the 32bit Photoshop CS6, I manually copied the plugin files, their associated DLLs and activation tool, they all functioned perfectly in CS6E 64bit.

Along came CC, and the the trial, I had the same problem. I found out manually copying the plugins to the 32bit Photoshop CC 2013 worked just fine, but but not in the 64bit, so I had to be careful of the work. 

Every thing I have works just fine, the only thing I can think of having to do, it keep a 'past it's trial date' version of CC on the hard drive so I can download and install latest Camera Raw, if necessary.  I have that work around so I can use CS6 Adobe Camera Raw in CS5 Bridge.  That's too handy of a trick to lose.

A most unhelpful reply

I have been posting for 2 years on a thread I started on the Adobe Forums about CS6 Bridge being so slow. 

Some twit decided to say he didn't feel like wading through 4 pages/130 posts to see if he could help.

I asked him "Then why did you bother posting this reply?" 

He also said it's not a general problem.  Really?  I know quite a number of people who have this problem, many of them who didn't have an earlier version of Photoshop so didn't know its behavior was glacially slow. And instead of post "ME TOO!" they just visit the thread to see if there have been any new developments.

So, for this lazy person, I posted everything in one post. Did some copy/paste, some editing to make sure I wasn't repeating myself and posted it as a reply.

Not going to hold my breath.

After much testing this, that or the other thing

The final solution to Adobe CS6 Bridge being slow is this:

Copy the Adobe Camera Raw.8bi v8.3 into the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-ins\CS5\File Formats folder. This way, you will get all the metadata, AND when you press space bar to preview the images, you get the full embedded jpg view.

You have to right click, "Open With Photoshop CS6" and ACR 8.3 opens without a hitch. But if you right click and select OPEN IN CAMERA RAW you get the "unable to use the Camera Raw plug-in. It is not compatible with this version of Bridge." (leading me to believe if I had really great programming skills, I could remove that version checking that would allow it to launch on a double click. Maybe someone other than me can figure that one out.)

On the rare occasion I really need to tweak a jpg in Adobe camera Raw, I'll just use CS6 to do so.

Adobe CS5 Bridge usage with PSCS6

As I previously posted about it, if you remove the Camera Raw.8bi from the C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-ins\CS5\File Formats, when you double click on the RAW/ORF file in CS5 Bridge, it automatically goes to the latest Camera Raw (in this case, 8.3), but you wouldn't see any of the metadata (camera make/model, shutter speed, ISO, date taken, etc etc), but you would see it in CS5 bridge after image is saved as a JPG.

Personally, I want to see the metadata of the RAW files. Solution: copied the Camera Raw.8bi from the CS6 version into the CS5 folder, as it has all the camera data info.  Now, this means you can't double click as it will kick up the incompatible current version of bridge. But if you right click and Open With and choose CS6, it opens in Camera Raw 8.3. 

Takes about an eye-blink longer to do it this way, than to double click to open in Camera Raw directly.  Works for me! :D

Holy crow, that worked!

For almost 2 years, I've been dealing with glacier slow Adobe CS6 Bridge. Every fix/tweak/suggest has been tried with no results. CS5 Bridge was always faster. What I did was this. I left CS5 installed (smartest thing I did). Using yLaunch, I made a short cut for Photoshop CS6 and Bridge CS5. Biggest problem was newer ORF files are unreadable by Bridge CS5, so I convert those to DNG. But how to get the latest Adobe Camera Raw to work with it? It was so simple, I'm surprised I didn't think of it sooner. I went into C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-ins\CS5\File Fomats and moved the Camera Raw.8bi out of there to my desktop. I launched PSCS6 and CS5 Bridge with yLaunch. Opened CS5 Bridge preferences and changed every instance of Photoshop CS5 to Photoshop CS6. Restarted Bridge. Double clicked on a DNG, and voila, it opened in Adobe Camera Raw 8.2 without a problem. I tried this on Canon CR2 files, and it worked, too. And all the scripts to photomerge or other tasks work with CS5 Bridge. And after doing this, the ORF files were viewable in Bridge CS5. Halli-fekking-luliah!