5 Myths About Adobe Creative Cloud

As I begin to wind down the Adobe Create New Tour, I couldn’t help but notice that no matter what city I went to, the story was the same. While people generally knew about Adobe’s Creative Cloud, they often had misconceptions about it. I started each presentation explaining what Creative Cloud was and what it wasn’t. Since not every one can attend a Create Now event Live, I thought I’d debunk the Top 5 Myths about Creative Cloud that I hear the most.

#1 “I don’t want to run my Applications in a web browser!”

When people hear “cloud” they get visions of running applications in a web browser. While that may be the case with other cloud offerings, it’s not the case with Creative Cloud. Creative Cloud members download and install their Apps as Adobe customers always have. The Apps like Photoshop , Illustrator, InDesign and even the new app Muse runs from your Hard Drive, not from the cloud.

#2 ” I don’t want to have to be connected to the internet just to use Photoshop.”

Once we get past the fact that you download the Apps and install them on your hard drive, people still sometimes think that they need to be connected to the internet to actually run the Apps because they are Creative Cloud Apps. Again, this is not true. Your Apps not only install on your hard drive, but they also can very much run offline. You computer does have to connect to the internet once a month to verify that your membership is still current, but that’s it. Once that check has happened you can disconnect and run all of your Creative Cloud apps OFF-line.

Update as of 5/6/2013: You will need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you’ll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days. However, you’ll be able to use products for 99 days even if you’re offline.

#3 “I can’t share files to my clients or colleagues unless they’re Creative Cloud members.”

With your Creative Cloud membership you get 20GBs of cloud storage. You can use this storage to sync files between your devices and access them via the Touch Apps like Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas. If you place files in your Creative Cloud folder on your hard drive those files will not only be accessible when you’re offline, but you can also log into creative.adobe.com and share them. Once you decide to share a file you can email a link to your colleagues or clients and they will be able to view your file in their web browser even if they’ve never heard of Creative Cloud or the Adobe applications you used to create them. They don’t have to create an account or register for anything. See my video on how to share files with Creative Cloud here.

# 4 “If I decide to leave Creative Cloud I won’t be able to access the files I’ve created.”

When you create files with the various Creative Apps from Adobe, the files are yours. Adobe doesn’t take any ownership or copyright of those files. If you decide to no longer be a Creative Cloud member then you won’t have access to your Creative Cloud applications anymore, but if you’ve got previous CS App versions, you’ll be able to open your files provided that you’ve saved them down to compatible formats with your older applications or other 3rd party Applications. If you ever decided to re-join Creative Cloud you’ll have access to the latest Creative Apps again and you’ll be able to continue working on YOUR files.

# 5 “If I go with Creative Cloud I’m going to always be forced to run the newest versions of the software.”

With Adobe Creative Cloud you will always have access to the latest Adobe Creative Applications, but you are not forced to upgrade. You can continue to run which ever versions of the software that you want until YOU are ready to upgrade. This is crucial for workflows that involve working with clients or vendors that may not be on the latest versions of the software.

Update as of 5/6/2013: Creative Cloud paid members have access to a select set of archived versions of the desktop apps. Starting with CS6, select older versions of the desktop creative apps will be archived and available for download. Archived versions are provided “as is” and are not updated to work with the latest hardware and software platforms.

Bonus Myth “If I have a Mac and a PC I’ll have to join Creative Cloud twice!”

Actually not only is this not true, but it’s one of the best benefits of Creative Cloud. With Creative Cloud you’re allowed to install the software on up to TWO of your computers. Just like you are able to do with the Creative Suite applications. However, unlike Creative Suite, Creative Cloud allows you to download and install either the Mac or Windows versions for each computer. This is great for people that have say a Windows PC at work, but a Mac at home.

 Bonus Myth “I don’t like monthly payments and you won’t let me pay for a year all at once!”

Yes, you can buy a year of Creative Cloud at once and even lock in your price by doing so right here orhere for student/teachers.

Bonus Myth “I don’t need all of the tools in Creative Cloud! I only use Photoshop and $50 a month is too much for just Photoshop.”

You can do a Single App membership to the individual application of your choice for less. There’s even a lower price for CS3-CS6 users. See the plans here.

Get the Facts!

Those were the top 5 myths that I hear all the time, but there are several more misconceptions about Creative Cloud. If you have questions, I encourage you to check out this extensive FAQ. I’d be willing to bet that your question has been answered there.

Original Post from Terry White’s Tech Blog  http://terrywhite.com/