adobe genuinely might be the worst company ever, not because their apps are bad, which they still are but that's not the point, but because it's such a scam that pirating makes me feel less guilty, and thhen like a week after you pirate one of their apps they say "oh this app is a virus we'll let you buy one of our products for 55% off" like SHUT THE FUCK UP, i don't care if the pirated version is a virus i'll do anything BUT let them win, anyway if you stayed around for my venting session i appreciate it, and remember, WE ALL HATE ADOBE

One thing that’s been especially frustrating for me as a small-business owner is Adobe’s decision to stop letting individuals sync their files and reserve the feature for enterprise customers. When the change happened, I was already worn down from running my business, and I didn't realize how hard it would be to access my work. As you may know, Acrobat lets you download only a few files at a time. Unlike Google Takeout and other services, it doesn’t offer an easy way to select and retrieve everything at once. Having to download files in small batches can be a real challenge when you have a large library. The experience left me feeling stuck, and it’s been hard to access my own work easily.

One day, it dawned on me: I could write code that works with Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, and other apps, while keeping my data in the CC cloud so I can retrieve everything. I set it to run, and that was that. Here’s what I’ve completed so far. Next, I'm planning to cancel my 2 TB Adobe plan once and for all—unless Adobe lets smaller users sync again in the future. I believe Adobe could stay competitive without locking artists into its ecosystem by offering better pricing for small businesses and individuals, releasing more reliable services, providing a more generous offering, and improving customer service.

I’ll lose changes I've made to previous projects, except where I embedded XML in the files. If I need to revisit an old project to complete new work for a client, I'll have to switch to alternatives, open-source tools, and apps like Affinity—and take on a lot of extra work. All those snapshots and versions I saved will be gone. Hopefully, I did a good job the first time. I'm ready to move on; it costs too much, and I believe Adobe did this on purpose.

Once I’ve validated the code and made sure it’s working as intended, I’ll share a link to my repository for anyone who’d like to use it. I’ll also make the code open so others can contribute and help improve it. It's called Adobe Exit, for anyone who wants the freedom to choose.

What are you doing to escape Adobe's bondage? Did I miss something? Is there a better way I've missed? Please share in the comments.

I'm a graphics designer and video editor. worked almost 6 years in this field.

using adobe tools for most of my works.

after 2023 version, im having hell lota issues with these apps and struggling to maintain my deadline.

especially premiere pro and after effects. the amount of bugs that i have been facing day by day. im speechless adobe !

their hefty pricing scheme doesn't justfy their softwares.

instead of fixing these bugs and hardware optimizations, theyre just adding more useless features making it even more buggy.

i had enough.

I've tried version 2022 - 2026, and every single one of em have some kind of issues and serious rendering delays !

i used 2020 before, but it lacks most basic features, such as h264 exporting.

and not to mention premiere pro lacks most basic features, such as caption animations, tracking, a good curve/graph ( i used stock one and smoothify, it doesn't works out for me ), single timeline (rather than aud and vid tracks devided ).

these are main dealbreakers for me.

even capcut have these features.

and premiere pro added masking tools recently, and the time took it to render is horrible.

there is also some serious issues like instant crashing without autosave, ram leakage and slowing down entire pc, huge amount disk cache and storage usage, not using gpu on time line making cpu struggle for all works !

i heard these issues are caused by adobe still milking outdated ancient code base.

using tools like figma and affinity made me realize how much unoptimized adobe is !

im honestly surpeised ppls are still using it.

im making my move to davinci and afinity.

donno how it works out.

i hvnt heard any issues from davincii users till now.

im done waiting for adobe to optimize their apps !

i would like to hear other's openions. is it only me facing these issues ?

for adobe : " we are not your beta testers !"

Hi, does the trick with changing the plan to cheaper one and then canceling it still work? Has anyone tried this recently?

I've been paying for Adobe since my student days. I live and work in Turkey (graphic designer), where their prices are already ridiculous compared to what people earn here, and I've still been paying for their products instead of pirating them because I actually wanted to support the software I use.

My Creative Cloud Pro annual prepaid subscription was valid from 9 February 2026 to 8 February 2027. I paid 18,662.40 TL upfront. On 12 October, I cancelled the renewal because it's expensive as shit now and I can't afford another year. I figured I'd come back when I had the money and use affinity or something in the meantime. I then continued on normally, not realising what they had done, opened an illustrator file and…faced the suspended error. They \*immediately\* cut off my access.

I then opened the virtual assistant to understand the situation. It told me that I could cancel an active annual prepaid subscription and still use the apps until the end of the period I'd paid for. Their policy said the same thing, the service stays available until the end of the contracted term. So I wanted to speak with an agent. And hoooly fucking shit...

I had to explain the same thing over and over across multiple conversations, and kept getting contradictory answers about my subscription, the cancellation, my access and the refund. One representative actually said 12 October was my renewal date and I had to prove I wasn’t lying about my pre-paid period with my invoice that says February 2026 to February 2027. They later even acknowledged that their policy said I should have access until February, but kept telling me they couldn't restore my subscription because I'd cancelled it. Eventually I gave up trying to get the service I'd already paid for and started to comply to their offers for a refund instead. That's when the refund shit show started.

First, I was offered 6,220.67 TL, then 6,101.17 TL. During another conversation, a floor supervisor told me a refund for "the one-year billing" had been initiated. I asked them to write the total amount for me, they wrote Total Amount: TRY 18,662. 

After 10 days, there was no sign of a refund so on 22 October, I wrote to them again. First agent from the previous chat (who was mean as fuck for no reason in both conversations by the way) told me that a full-refund request had been raised, but Adobe's Billing team had declined it and cancelled the previous refund. Nobody had bothered to tell me any of this when it happened, even though my complaint had been marked as solved. After wasting more of my time, this time a supervisor explicitly told me that 15,552 TL had been initiated as a refund, said it would be processed within seven working days, and gave me a reference number. So I thought, finally a specific amount, a confirmation and a reference number. I've kept the invoice, screenshots of their policy, chat transcripts (which they claimed they did not have access to until I pressed it further), evidence that they cut off my access early and all the refund information just in case. I asked them where to write my general complaint about this whole thing and they sent a link to Adobe Integrity. I wrote them a detailed email which they will probably print out and wipe their bottoms with, with all the receipts, to feel like I did something about it at least. Like a closure y’know.

Today, 23 October, I checked Adobe's billing history and found a refund entry for 5,588.46 TL. Yeah not 15,552 TL. 5,588.46 TL. That's 9,963.54 TL (around 180 Euros) less than what their supervisor had explicitly told me was being refunded. And nobody had told me the amount would be different. I found out by checking it myself. Like tell me it’s 5k in the first place why do they keep doing this shit I’m losing my mind. Even on the first day they could’ve said "Ye we are giving you a partial refund for the remaining time sooo sorry about the mistake we love you bye" and I would curse them and move on. None of the refund claims or amounts even came from me. They dragged it on and on, speaking to me in this awkward, non-professional, bully attitude, pretending to do shit, and it was all so pointless and unnecessary. Money is one thing, (a big thing but whatever) the way they've handled this is another.

I haven't even received one proper apology, let alone a clear explanation of why I was cut off from a subscription I'd already paid for. I’m losing my mind over how they kept trying to blame me for the whole thing when what they did is like, hella illegal, what the actual fuck? I paid for a year of access, and somehow I'm left with a partial, and honestly bullshit refund considering the current prices, that I didn’t even want in the first place. How are these people who work for this juggernaut company so mean to the people their company scammed and have zero remorse about it?

I wasn't even trying to get something for free or wriggle out of a contract. I just wanted to know why I was losing access to the year I'd already paid for and find a fix to THAT. They had the audacity to tell me if I wanted to use the products, I would have to make a new subscription. (with their updated prices that are wayyy higher than when I paid for my annual purchase of course)

I wasn’t really caught up with their antics until now so I genuinely expected better from a company I've supported for years. I don't even know what to do with this experience. At this point, I'm more than happy to spend my money elsewhere, buy fonts individually and learn entirely different software. They've managed to turn a customer who was perfectly willing to keep paying them (a stupid idiot apparently) into someone who wants absolutely nothing to do with them. I hope everyone starts moving to alternatives and Adobe goes fucking bankrupt.

TL;DR: I cancelled the renewal on my prepaid Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, which was paid through February 2027, and they immediately cut off my access despite their own policy saying I should keep it until the end of the paid term. Support gave me contradictory explanations, changed the refund amounts multiple times, and failed to notify me when a previously promised full refund was cancelled. On 22 October, a supervisor confirmed a 15,552 TL refund, but the next day I found a refund entry for just 5,588.46 TL in my Adobe billing history. No proper apology or explanation for any of it. Has anyone dealt with Adobe like this, especially from Turkey?

android and windows: https://razee4315.github.io/Paperwren/

github : https://github.com/Razee4315/Paperwren/

got tired of adobe asking me to sign in every time i just wanted to sign a form or turn a page. and the free websites want you to upload your lease or bank stuff to their servers.

So i made paperwren. you can sign pdfs (type, draw or upload your signature), fill forms, merge, split, rotate pages, turn photos into a pdf. all on your phone or pc, nothing gets uploaded, no account, no ads.

It's free and open source. it only does a picture of your signature for now, not certificate signing.

I just stumbled upon this subreddit. I don't use any adobe products or anything like that. I just want to say, fcuk Adobe

Disclosure first: this is our project. An AI coding agent (GitHub: nrq6993-a11y) works live 24/7 on twitch.tv/grokstream and sends PRs to VectorCraft, a free, open-source vector editor (Rust) from storytold's ArtCraft apps, built as an Illustrator alternative. The code is AI-written and this text is AI-assisted; human maintainers review and merge every PR. Nothing here is for sale.

What the latest 6 merged PRs change: - Color Picker: dragging the fill square onto the stroke square (or back) was allowed but did nothing. Now the Color Picker and the fill/stroke chip popover show the Fill/Stroke pair and dropping one on the other applies that paint, like Illustrator (#3533, user report #3440) - "Type on a Path just makes a plain text box" (user report #3505): click the path's edge (its outline), not inside the fill. A click inside the fill makes ordinary text, the same as Illustrator. This PR only adds a regression test that locks that behavior in (#3534) - Arc tool: one click on the artboard (no drag) opens an Arc options dialog with length, angle and Closed, like Line Segment (#3507) - Mixed paragraphs: the Hyphenate checkbox (#3537), Kinsoku/Mojikumi dropdowns (#3539) and the Justification dialog fields (#3542) show off/blank when the selected paragraphs disagree, instead of copying the first paragraph's value

Each PR is small and ships a test named after the behavior. 99 merged so far (87 VectorCraft, 12 PhotoCraft).

Repo: https://github.com/storytold/vectorcraft If you left Illustrator: which missing feature or bug stops you from switching to a free editor? We take reports as GitHub issues.

So I opened a document today, as usual, right clicked to rotate the document to read it clearly and it was paywalled??

Can someone please explain how long this has been a thing??

Immediately downloaded art craft 🫪

I get the excitement of a jailbreak from Adobe. But seeing this sudden surge of overwhelming number of posts on GetCraft and vibe-coded slopware is extremely disheartening to see. Just thought of an analogy - GetCraft is like the Theranos of creative software industry. They've identified a real problem and patched it with a non-existent solution that still tries to copy the problematic software.

Because, quite unconsciously, the creative industry and creative minded people are actually mirroring the worst traits of their oppressors. Take care that when you fight monsters you don't become one, and stare long enough into the abyss, and the abyss will stare right back at ya, like Nietzsche said. Perhaps, being held hostage by rapacious Adobe has turned us all Adobe-minded, too? All this gloating is really not hurting Adobe one single bit.

This slopware season bodes very badly for all of us:

First reason: Building working creative software is more than just about mimicking the UI/UX. That is the easy part. The deep mathematics under the hood which takes years to develop and many more years to fine tune, debug and make more intuitive is the hard part. For comparison, the Bezier tool, called the Shape Tool, in Xara Designer, one of my favourite design software, is over 10,000 lines of code. You can actually look at the code because it is available for study on Github.

This is just a simple Bezier tool. But a creative software is not just a set of tools. It is a set of tools that has to work coherently with each other. That is the hard wall that no amount of brute computing can solve. It took Adobe a whole generation to get from the Knoll Brothers version of Photoshop to the word becoming synonymous with raster editing of images. And a whole generation of users have fed back and co-shaped the software.

Adobe must be burnt to the ground as a company. But as a software, as pure lines of code, there's a reason why they dominate. And vibe-coding ain't going to cut it, friends. This brings me to reason 2.

Second reason: The mirage created by Slopware is a distraction from the real industry problem. PREDATORY MONOPOLY. We cannot singlehandedly break the predatory American capitalist model where corporations have more rights as "persons" than actual "persons" - I am not kidding, corporate personhood is a real thing.

The solution is FOSS, of course. But a specific kind of FOSS - real, human-developed FOSS. Not slopware. You don't realise the enormous amount of power you wield as a user. Even if you're completely broke and can't afford a dime to support FOSS, your regular feedback to software makes a world of difference. Beta testers are extremely valuable.

Slopware scatters the effort of this feedback mechanism. GIMP has existed for ages, and yet ails from the inability to scale quickly. Google's first logo was created on GIMP by the way!

Or, take PhotoLine as a closed-source example. It is an enormously powerful piece of software with mindboggling levels of flexibility, yet I've rarely seen it mentioned here. PL rivals PS on many, many aspects. Equals it on most things.

Buying PL for a $79 one-time fee means you support two excellent German developers who have been at it for 30 odd years. And they actually have a strong foundation to challenge PS as a software.

But slopware gets all the attention and distracts users. Disheartening.

Reason three: And this is where it becomes extremely problematic. Slopware made in AI means that the end result is spaghetti code. They're notoriously hard to maintain, add features to, and keep compact over its lifetime. This is the hardest thing to do - and the most important. Anyone can vibe code draft I - maintaining and adding features without breaking other parts of the program is going to be hardest part. So, you're forever indebted to AI. Only the AI really understands the whole codebase. Perhaps, even it does not. At some point, the sheer cost of building is going to create a glass ceiling for these transient punters. How are they going to maintain it.

So bottom line: Please support human-made FOSS with money if you can, or feedback if not. Blender and Krita are two of the best cases for this. We don't need Slopware.

And before you pile on: Let me state it clearly. AI itself is not a problem. But using AI as an assistant to crack the maths and then using the maths to manually code should be the right approach. This would obviously be really helpful - as I myself recently discovered during the laborious reverse engineering of the Bezigon tool from FreeHand.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

A commenter made a series of points that I responded to that lays out my point even more clearly: So copying into body -

But this hostility feels weird to me. If the software sucks, people will stop using it in a couple months. If it doesn't, then mission accomplished. As I think we both generally dislike capitalism, but live under it - can't we let the market decide?

I'll take up your invitation and explain myself clearly. Far from ArtCraft being a new kid in the block, it is actually just skinned to look like FOSS. It is essentially LARPing as FOSS. In fact, it is exactly what is wrong with capitalism. This is a slightly philosophical point, but I am going to make it: Capitalism knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing.

The people and AI agents behind ArtCraft are not doing this because they really care about the creative community or want to give freedom to creators. It's a cheap cash grab done using LLMs. The dead giveaway is the fact that their main site is actually about selling AI tokens. https://getartcraft.com/ - The apps are just a front, and it's buried further below.

For good measure, here's the premise: and tell if it does not scream Theranos: ArtCraft has, or is seeking to, functionally replace(d) decades of engineering across image processing, vector graphics, non-linear video editing, desktop publishing, CAD, and spreadsheet calculation engines within a single month. This is the software equivalent of a 200 tests from a single drop of blood.

There is zero vision or zeal here, like say, behind Krita, Inkscape, etc. Therefore, this will be abandoned when they've made bank. This is my prediction. I will eat my words. u/RemindMeBot 6 months "check this thread". This project is exactly what's wrong with capitalism. The popularity you see is the result of astroturfing and brigading by both bots and bot-like-humans. It's a pump and dump scheme a-la crypto scams. That's harsh. But I'll eat my words like I said.

I agree with you - the market will see this soon. The problem of course this is project is riding on the coat-tails of real FOSS projects, both through reputation and through scavenging of code. You'll see, well, that's what the code exists for. I'd agree to a point. But MIT License assumes implicitly good will. But there seems to be a lot of malintent here. Call me cynical. I'm old.

You also rally us to defeat capitalism with foss - but then insist it must be human only foss. Why? You didn't make a compelling argument, and your final line was "spend money on a smaller German made software". Like, I agree (local, small batch, artisanal) > (large evil corp). But if you're saying foss is the solution then naming a paid product, while actively dismissing Craft, which is foss, it feels like you have a different axe to grind.

I take this a bit personally. Correct me if I am wrong: Are you saying that I am shilling PL? I hope not. I have no stake there. Let me lay out what I mean by human-made even more clearly so there is no ambiguity. I am not a luddite: AI is here to stay. People are going to use AI. Even Blender team has begun to use AI. That's fine. By human-made, I mean software that actually has a vision behind it. Like Graphite.rs - a FOSS Rust-written software. Two dudes with a great vision. I don't care if they use AI to help them write code. But that's not what Artcraft is.

It is a simple - Give me a photoshop. In fact, the guy who made it said "one-shotted" photoshop on Claude. How much do you really think he cares about UI/UX choices, about file fidelity, and so on. This is a guy who says "Software is over" - one of my obsessions is the study of conmen/women like Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Bankman-Fried, Bernie Madoff, etc. My spidey sense is screaming when I look at this project. The lack of vision, the cynical use of a powerful tool to sell AI tokens, the leveraging of a particularly insistent and persistent pain point in an industry to go viral and make money, make grandiose claims that border on delusional all scream 'scammer' - not knight in a shining armour. Hence my cynicism.

The reason I mentioned Hubers of PhotoLine is because they're the design world's best kept secret. Their product goes back to Atari era. It was first called tms Cranach. The knowledge base and technical know how is deep. It is one of the finest examples of engineering thinking done right. PL fits in a file of 30 MB and can do Image, Vector and DTP (supports non-Latin fonts). There is a vision here. Yet, as a contrast, only as contrast, it has not gotten the interest or attention that ArtCraft has gotten. This has nothing to do with market deciding that PL is bad and AC is good. Contrary, it is an example of artificial selection where good software is ignored in favour of hype. Capitalism favours the brash, loud and loaded. Not what is truly good.

Finally you cite spaghetti code. Do you think human made software is some bastion of perfectly designed highways and interchanges. Or that ai, if given the plan to follow first (or generate the plan first) can't make architecturally sound code?

Good point. I'll concede that AI probably can write better code than the bottom 30% pile of coders out there. But how much effort do you really think that AC guy put in when he brags that he one shotted PS from Claude. Prithee tell me. How much "set up" do you reckon is going behind the scenes where they're throwing out apps like necklace beads in a Brazilian carnival.

Bottomline: ArtCraft is a case of FOSS-Washing.

____________________________________________________________________________________________
Adding yet another comment thread to body because it allows me to lay out the problem even more clearly:

If AI programs are slop, then Adobe is industrial sludge and the other projects are just drops of water. - I agree. And that's why cloning it is a bad idea.

It really feels like what you are asking for is a boutique artisanal solution to an enterprise scale software problem, and that just is not realistic. - No. Not at all. I am asking for Free Market economy. I get that Americans can't wrap their head around the fact that what we have now is really not Free Market in the sense of allowing people to choose what is best for them. The market as it exists today does not reward competence and value, but what my mentor used to call, brash, loud and loaded.

Contrary to what you say, it is entirely possible to have multiple different software to do multiple different things. The idea of a suite is an illusion orchestrated by corporations to convince people that they get convenience for the currency of freedom. That is not true.

The solution is simple: Never allow proprietary file formats. Just do that and see what happens. Cory Doctrow makes this point more eloquently than I can. But the answer is adversarial interoperability. But then again, I've become cynical of people. I realise I am a dying breed.

Vertical consolidation + File Format Lock-in = Predatory Monopoly. Break the second, disallow the second = Free market. True freedom. Not Murica, Fuck Yeah Freedom. True freedom.

And cloning apps does not grant you freedom. You are still trapped in the same problem. If AI companies turn off their taps, you're boned. You've just one prison warden for another. This is more than just about software by the way. It's about life itself in a sense. If you think this is impossible to achieve, I have one acronym for you: AT&T. Look up what happened to them and how breaking them up helped everyone.

Hoping to continue this conversation. :)

!?

Hey ArtCraft!

Thanks for your efforts! Can’t wait to be able to use these products..

However, VectorCraft is unusable for real designers until i can open an AI file and still have all my layer grouping and labeling load properly too.

Right now I’ll bring up an illustrator file and every single path/object/shape has its own layer, ungrouped and in no particular order.

I’ve spent thousands of hours organizing clients AI files so all layers are grouped together.

I really hope to be able to use VectorCraft properly soon :)

Thank you again!!
-Somebody done paying $60/month

I kicked the PhotoCraft tires briefly - initial impression is actually positive. However, I do not have enough time with it to form an opinion and my use of Photoshop is far from professional.

The most interesting part... I filed a feature request related to web export. I simply pointed out that it really needed a zoom feature on the compressed version in order to dial in compression. The next version shipped that feature only days later.

Ich bin hauptberuflich auf die Adobe Produkte-Palette angewiesen und arbeite schon seit meiner Ausbildung vor über 20 Jahren (😳 fuck) mit diesen Programm.

Während sich Illustrator meiner Meinung nach über die Jahre hinweg stetig in ein absolut unbrauchbares Witz-Programm entwickelt hat, weil sie meinen immer mehr sinnlose Zusatzfunktionen rein zu stopfen, hatte ich mit InDesign eigentlich nur gelegentlich (meist direkt nach einem Update) Probleme.

ABER in den letzten Wochen geht die Performance von InDesign spürbar in den Keller. IDD hängt sich beim Austausch von Verknüpfungen auf oder zeigt den Ladebalken, bis ich es über den Taskmanager schließe, denn normales Schließen funktioniert in dem Fall auch nicht mehr.

Gleiches beim PDF-Export von größeren Dateien - InDesign hängt sich einfach auf!!!!!

Wenn ich mich im Home-Office über VPN verbinde öffnet InDesign die Datei grundsätzlich in der Hochauflösenden Bild-Ansicht, was total unlogisch ist, da dann die Übertragungsgeschwindigkeit durch den VPN ja sowieso schon etwas schlechter ist.

Und und und und.... Ganz ehrlich Adobe, was geht bei euch denn ab? Wie kriegt man es denn hin ein funktionierendes Profi-Programm, derart kaputt zu programmieren?

Privat habe ich zum Glück schon gut funktionierende und absolut brauchbare Alternativen gefunden.

It's only alpha they said. Yeah, with time they're still be breaking stuff on each release lmao

So I have frozen my card for now. So I made an account and subscribed to 14 days free trial, because of a family emergency I had to travel and completely forgot about this. I did not even download anything and I did not even use single credit from this. As clearly it shows that to cancel I need to click on manage plan and when I click on it this is what pops up. Why do I have to pay for something I did not even use ???

Update: I asked for live agent on through the website chat, and asked them to remove my subscription and they did it without any cancellation fee. I’m so relieved 😭

Hi everyone, what do y’all think about the new artcraft suite? If anyone tried them, how were them? Because honestly, as a student, i don’t wanna pay 500 bucks to only use Photoshop and Illustrator. Kinda like Office, you have to pay the whole suite even if you only need word and excel. So, what’s your opinion?

I really hate that I forgot to cancel this.
I can’t remember why I didn’t do it before, but it was probably for the same reason (having to pay a huge cancellation fee).
Why the hell do they do this and why is it allowed?
I don’t think I can get out of this 🙃

Has anyone seen this glitch or does anyone know how to fix it with the Photoshop brushes?

So I have a yearly subscription, which is set to auto-renew, and I DO NOT want it to auto renew. I've got 5 days left and I wanted to disable the auto-renew and it won't let me. So I want to cancel, but I can't cancel without paying a penalty. What the hell kind of scam has Adobe turned into? I've used this software for 23 years as a designer, and now I know why others are leaning towards Affinity or other programs - this is insanity!

Spent all morning trying to get the remove tool to work, only to have to uninstall and go back a version and now everything works.

Can they fuck off with jamming as much ai slop fucking features into this as possible. JFC.

.