Adobe...sigh

[Mario]

After having installed Photoshop and Lr (subscription) and Acrobat Reader on my new development PC, I was astonished and a bit miffed about the number of background services Adobe anchors in the registry and makes Windows run when you start your computer.

I could find at least 10 (probably there are more) services and applications Adobe starts on my PC. Which all do whoknowswhat.
I don't use their cloud to store my data (heaven forbid!), I don't sync, I don't use their fonts, synch features, cloud, stock photos and whatever...
Still, Adobe takes my PC ransom, burning CPU cycles and precious power for whatever purpose.

I have not read their 500 page license agreement yet in detail, but I'm sure that at least one of these services (probably all) reports what I do on my PC back to Adobe. For whatever nefarious and money-grabbing purpose.

This is ridiculous. Adobe has totally lost it. How can users let them get away with all this nonsense?

And users complain when IMatch asks (!) for permission (!) to send some truly anonymous telemetry data to my server - where I'm the only person who will ever see it and I also regularly delete old telemetry data.

[DigPeter]

I still use my off-line LR, but nothing else, except pdf Reader, from Adobe.  Are their cloud products so important that there alternatives cannot be used?  My version of LR does not handle CR3 raw format, so I am using DxO instead.

[Mario]

There is, unfortunately, no real alternative for Photoshop (for me). And it comes with all the 'cloud' overhead, Adobe IPC, Adobe software protection services, update services, sync services and whatnot.

IMatch also checks for updates. When the user starts IMatch.
I don't need to anchor an update checker service which runs with System (!) privileges all the time and has virtually unlimited access to anything you do...
Adobe does. Even if you don't start Ps/Lr for a week, all their little background services are running and phoning home. I wonder which valuable data Adobe receives that way...

Same with nVidea. Their drivers also report telemetry data constantly to nVidea...sad.

[loweskid]

On my system, according to CCleaner, there are 38 programs set to run on startup (ridiculous!).  Of these 8 are Adobe, all of which I've disabled.  In total I've disabled all but 9 of the 38.

[Mario]

Precisely.

[Jingo]

I still use my off-line LR, but nothing else, except pdf Reader, from Adobe.  Are their cloud products so important that there alternatives cannot be used?  My version of LR does not handle CR3 raw format, so I am using DxO instead.

For me - Indesign is king and I use it daily for 8-10 hrs .... while there are "alternatives" - nothing comes close to it and I'll glad pay the monthly fee to use it (though I would prefer to just own it!) and live with the stuff that runs along with the main program - though I have gotten rid of most services.  I disable EVERYTHING else that is running when the program is NOT in use... I don't have any Adobe items remaining.

[Menace]

I try the actual Indesign (I am QuarkXpress User and changed to Affinity Publisher and want with Indesign import quarkxpress files) and it was the pest. Never seen worse software. And if you have a bad internet connection you just can suffer. Deinstalled the software after 48 hours (and therefore you need their get rid off software).

I still have Adobe CS6 products, but it must be more than one year I used them. Photoshop -> Capture One or Helicon or Affinity Photo, AI -> Affinity designer and Indesign I never used and never will be. If you don't have to, don't support that company.

[sinus]

I still use my off-line LR, but nothing else, except pdf Reader, from Adobe.  Are their cloud products so important that there alternatives cannot be used?  My version of LR does not handle CR3 raw format, so I am using DxO instead.

For me - Indesign is king and I use it daily for 8-10 hrs .... while there are "alternatives" - nothing comes close to it and I'll glad pay the monthly fee to use it (though I would prefer to just own it!) and live with the stuff that runs along with the main program - though I have gotten rid of most services.  I disable EVERYTHING else that is running when the program is NOT in use... I don't have any Adobe items remaining.

Ha, cool!
For me is InDesign also the best, but I work still only with CS6. 
A very cool software.

But in relation to IMatch, depends on what, I guess, even InDesign is not as good as IMatch'es "Design & Print".
Except maybe if you do some scripting with ID.

But pull out even the most hidden metatag from pictures and then let run 600 images with Design&Print, I think, even InDesign cannot do this, specialy if you think at the very cool variables with even math-stuff and so on.

Maybe it is possible with ID, but at least I would not know how and if you work that a lot with ID, ok, then of course you are a real ID-expert, what I am not. 

[Jingo]

I try the actual Indesign (I am QuarkXpress User and changed to Affinity Publisher and want with Indesign import quarkxpress files) and it was the pest. Never seen worse software. And if you have a bad internet connection you just can suffer. Deinstalled the software after 48 hours (and therefore you need their get rid off software).

I still have Adobe CS6 products, but it must be more than one year I used them. Photoshop -> Capture One or Helicon or Affinity Photo, AI -> Affinity designer and Indesign I never used and never will be. If you don't have to, don't support that company.

Sorry you didn't like Indesign... my business survives mainly because of Indesign ... been using it for almost 20 years now and what I can do in that software, I would never accomplish in Quark (tried it years ago) and Affinity Designer (still in its infancy).  Perhaps it is just my familiarity with the product... but I for one will gladly pay Adobe whatever they want for it... years ago, I used to pay many thousands of dollars a year for Photoshop/Indesign/Illustrator - as a business, it is just a part of my expenses and ~$600 a year is a bargain.


Markus - Indesign can indeed pull metadata from image files... there are plugins to help but you can do this via the Caption tool.... very simple and easy to use the embedded metadata!

[sinus]

...
Markus - Indesign can indeed pull metadata from image files... there are plugins to help but you can do this via the Caption tool.... very simple and easy to use the embedded metadata!

Thanks, Andy, I thought but was not sure, that ID can do pull out some metadata.
As a kind of interest, do you know, can ID pull out all (also old and not more in use) like
{File.MD.PLUS::XMP\Custom7\Custom7\0}

and can ID also use variables like in IMatch, like e.g.
{File.MD.XMP::dc\description\Description\0|numcomp:gt,171,{File.MD.XMP::dc\description\Description\0|substr:0,171}...,{File.MD.XMP::dc\description\Description\0},length} ?

I ask only, because sometimes I do print some booklets and without such variables (and even more complicated  ) I could not create such booklets in such a short time.
If this is also possible, I will give it a try the next time, because for me is InDesign also really one of the best software on the market.

BTW: I remember, that I liked ID, when first test-versions as K2 (if I remember correct) came out. 

[Jingo]

Hi Markus - unfortunately - the captions only uses standard metadata fields... however, you can certainly access the metadata via.. yes.. you guess it... scripting!  I have some scripts that I wrote that will read the XMP metadata for a file and then export/use that metadata... so, if the image file has a custom XMP field - we should be able to access it and then add it to say a text box.  It's programming... but oh so much fun!

[Jingo]

FUN!

Just polished off a script that should do the trick.. works with the standard XMP fields anyway.  Let me know if interested and I'll add some comments and share along.  At the moment, it just reads the selected image - could be modified to loop through img links, etc.  I also have a function that will export the fields to an XML file for further review/examination/use... Indesign is so powerful!

Keywords in IMatch as shown on my thumbnail:



Indesign Popup shows Keywords from XMP data within the file:

[Mario]

Which scripting language does InDesign use? Lua? Java? JavaScript? Python?

[Jingo]

Which scripting language does InDesign use? Lua? Java? JavaScript? Python?

I use Javascript but VBscript is also allowed.... once you learn the Indesign Object Model - it isn't too bad.. I've attached the sample script (.txt for attaching but should be .jsx for running in Indesign) I created for Markus just now (some code lines were borrowed from online sources).

As you can see with the "http://ns.adobe.com/lightroom/1.0/" namespace - you can just use custom/unknown to XMPConst namespaces by directly calling them instead of using the library constants.  So, your custom referenced metadata should work just fine so long as it is exported into the image.

ENJOY!! - Andy.

[sinus]

Hey Jingo

Very interesting, indeed!
Phew, here we see again, using and can use Java Script can help a lot on different plattforms and with different software.

Impressing, thanks for your script, I will test it for sure and will give you some feedback in the next time.

When Mario asked for what language and asked "Lua" ... well, made my day, funny names, have never heard from this, first I thought, he made a joke, but then I googled and boah, it is really a language. 

But lerning JS is for sure a good thing, I think.

[Mario]

I toyed with the idea of using Lua for IMatch (Adobe uses it for Lr, for example).
Lua can be integrated 'tightly' into an application like IMatch - which may give some speed improvements.

But in the end, I've 'invented' IMatch Anywhere™ WebServices and the rest is history - ahem

Using open web standards like HTML and JavaScript and an integrated WebServer makes IMatch accessible for virtually all programming languages.

Apps running inside IMatch must be written in HTML and JavaScript.
But external apps + programs can also connect to IMWS to work with IMatch database contents. And these programs can be written in any programming language.
I have PowerShell scripts which do that. And Python scripts. Or you can use VBA or Lua or Node or Java or even Office / Visual Basic or Delphi.
Virtually all modern programming / scripting languages can utilize WebServices.

I guess you can even pull data out of IMatch directly from InDesign
If you have the file name, you can fetch file data, metadata for the file etc. Everything you can also do from inside an IMatch app. Yay!

[sinus]

Which scripting language does InDesign use? Lua? Java? JavaScript? Python?

I use Javascript but VBscript is also allowed.... once you learn the Indesign Object Model - it isn't too bad.. I've attached the sample script (.txt for attaching but should be .jsx for running in Indesign) I created for Markus just now (some code lines were borrowed from online sources).

As you can see with the "http://ns.adobe.com/lightroom/1.0/" namespace - you can just use custom/unknown to XMPConst namespaces by directly calling them instead of using the library constants.  So, your custom referenced metadata should work just fine so long as it is exported into the image.

ENJOY!! - Andy.

Hey Andy,
Impressive, very good!
It worked "out of the box".   
Thanks for sharing!!

Yes, I guess, with good JS-knowledge we can do a lot.
From my point of view I like it most, if I can "pull out" some texts out of the IMatch-metadata, including its Attributes.
Because why write again (and risk to write some errors), if there is already all information there!?

That is why I love Design & Print and your timeline. 
Select images, click a button - done.

And this is cool and I guess, what most users want.
Select images - click - done. 

[Jingo]

Which scripting language does InDesign use? Lua? Java? JavaScript? Python?

I use Javascript but VBscript is also allowed.... once you learn the Indesign Object Model - it isn't too bad.. I've attached the sample script (.txt for attaching but should be .jsx for running in Indesign) I created for Markus just now (some code lines were borrowed from online sources).

As you can see with the "http://ns.adobe.com/lightroom/1.0/" namespace - you can just use custom/unknown to XMPConst namespaces by directly calling them instead of using the library constants.  So, your custom referenced metadata should work just fine so long as it is exported into the image.

ENJOY!! - Andy.

Hey Andy,
Impressive, very good!
It worked "out of the box".   
Thanks for sharing!!

Yes, I guess, with good JS-knowledge we can do a lot.
From my point of view I like it most, if I can "pull out" some texts out of the IMatch-metadata, including its Attributes.
Because why write again (and risk to write some errors), if there is already all information there!?

That is why I love Design & Print and your timeline. 
Select images, click a button - done.

And this is cool and I guess, what most users want.
Select images - click - done. 

Very good... I'm glad it worked and happy to share.  It is truly amazing what can be done with scripting/plug-ins in many products... not many take advantage of these advanced features but with a bit of "know-how" - you can do some amazing things.  I use a number of Indesign scripts to save hours and hours of work... auto-adding 250 pages of a PDF file for example.. one click and my work is done!  Another script allows me to place "rich text" into a reflowable text frame across pages... imperative to maintain bold/underline / italics but using the font and paragraph styling I setup in Indesign!

Enjoy and play around..... hope the comments are helpful as well! - Andy.

[John Zelada]

With cs6 these things did not happen, a question: what kind of tasks does it do in the background? apart from those already done

[Mario]

This is not really a support forum for Adobe software. In my post I just wanted to express my surprise at what Adobe makes Windows run in the background.

For more information, the same questions have been asked many times in the Adobe community:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/get-started/stop-the-background-processes-please/td-p/9969461?page=1

https://community.adobe.com/t5/get-started/15-adobe-background-process-running-when-i-m-not-using-any-adobe-application-what-are-they-for/td-p/7997646?page=1

[plastikman]

After having installed Photoshop and Lr (subscription) and Acrobat Reader on my new development PC, I was astonished and a bit miffed about the number of background services Adobe anchors in the registry and makes Windows run when you start your computer.

I could find at least 10 (probably there are more) services and applications Adobe starts on my PC. Which all do whoknowswhat.
I don't use their cloud to store my data (heaven forbid!), I don't sync, I don't use their fonts, synch features, cloud, stock photos and whatever...
Still, Adobe takes my PC ransom, burning CPU cycles and precious power for whatever purpose.

I have not read their 500 page license agreement yet in detail, but I'm sure that at least one of these services (probably all) reports what I do on my PC back to Adobe. For whatever nefarious and money-grabbing purpose.

This is ridiculous. Adobe has totally lost it. How can users let them get away with all this nonsense?

And users complain when IMatch asks (!) for permission (!) to send some truly anonymous telemetry data to my server - where I'm the only person who will ever see it and I also regularly delete old telemetry data.

Don't be surprised. Adobe is primarily a MARKETING & ADVERTISING company nowadays. They sell subscriptions to their customers and sell their data to their customers. Most of their Creative Cloud customers are Ad Agencies to begin with. Smart business model if you ask me! Companies that are primarily marketing & advertising are not to be trusted, never. See Google and Facebook.

I rather use an inferior product than an Adobe product. I don't want that amount of shit on my computer, period.

[Jingo]

After having installed Photoshop and Lr (subscription) and Acrobat Reader on my new development PC, I was astonished and a bit miffed about the number of background services Adobe anchors in the registry and makes Windows run when you start your computer.

I could find at least 10 (probably there are more) services and applications Adobe starts on my PC. Which all do whoknowswhat.
I don't use their cloud to store my data (heaven forbid!), I don't sync, I don't use their fonts, synch features, cloud, stock photos and whatever...
Still, Adobe takes my PC ransom, burning CPU cycles and precious power for whatever purpose.

I have not read their 500 page license agreement yet in detail, but I'm sure that at least one of these services (probably all) reports what I do on my PC back to Adobe. For whatever nefarious and money-grabbing purpose.

This is ridiculous. Adobe has totally lost it. How can users let them get away with all this nonsense?

And users complain when IMatch asks (!) for permission (!) to send some truly anonymous telemetry data to my server - where I'm the only person who will ever see it and I also regularly delete old telemetry data.

Don't be surprised. Adobe is primarily a MARKETING & ADVERTISING company nowadays. They sell subscriptions to their customers and sell their data to their customers. Most of their Creative Cloud customers are Ad Agencies to begin with. Smart business model if you ask me! Companies that are primarily marketing & advertising are not to be trusted, never. See Google and Facebook.

I rather use an inferior product than an Adobe product. I don't want that amount of shit on my computer, period.

Different strokes for different folks I suppose... I run a business and rely on the correct, professional tools to get the job done... Indesign is it for the power and flexibility it offers (as shown above).  I'm not an Adobe fanboy by any means (I dislike and don't use LR for example)... but - there I have no issue paying them what they ask on a monthly basis.  Adobe is like every other big company out there  - they want your info to sell...  [interesting article BTW: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/06/ccpa-faq/?arc404=true]

[Mario]

Luckily, I'm a tiny company. And I don't sell your data 

[medgeek]

[interesting article BTW: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/02/06/ccpa-faq/?arc404=true]

Thanks for that, Andy. Off to check out the CCPA...

[plastikman]

In Europe we have GDPR. But I have no faith in these laws. The fines are a joke to big companies and often they don't even have to pay them.

For businesses I understand that they go with Adobe for various reasons, but if you're a consumer you have a choice and I think you should vote with your wallet against Adobe and their practices.

The whole pricing of Creative Cloud Suite is geared towards Agencies. Which consumer can miss $60 a month for a set of software of which they won't use like 80% of the applications? And then you get free fonts, free portfolio websites, 1 free stock image (joke!) etc. It's a shame.... meanwhile you have something like Black Magic Design with Resolve that offers mostly free professional software, or Serif which offers good product for fantastic prices.... slowly consumers are starting to move in the right directions.

Same for IMatch.... good software for a good price.

[Mario]

Same for IMatch.... good software for a good price.

A-MEN and thanks!

Anyway, Adobe software is generally good. There is no real replacement for Illustrator, InDesign or Photoshop. On a pro level, at least.
There are replacements for Lr, though. Often even better replacements! Lr is a "does all, but not really well" product. The "all included" product for the masses.

Many Pro's I know have their workflow tied into PS or ID or IL, and that's just how it is.
Getting the work done, meeting customer specs, interoperability, skill set, experience and all that.

I personally use Affinity Designer now (e.g. for making all the nifty IMatch App icons).
I don't need Illustrator, because I'm not a working designer, with strict deadlines, requirements, workflows etc.
But Affinity Designer is no match for IL. If you are a Pro, you need the real thing.

For my DTP demands, the Microsoft Publisher included in my Office subscription is more than enough. Not InDesign. Before, I've used Scribus.
Pro's usually need ID. Many workflows, macros, color safety down to the dot, etc. Many depend on it. Even on it's many quirks.

But there is no real replacement for Photoshop. When you get down into the details, Ps is what delivers.
Much of my 'photographic' output are complex composits, and that's where Ps really excels.
That's just how it is. It's the reference.

I use Blender of course for 3D work. A FOSS application that exceeds commercial software. Awesome!


Since Adobe switched to the Saas (Software as a Service) system, prices of their products have dropped considerably.
Whether you pay more than before depends on wheter you've upgraded to every release. Or just updated Ps/* once every two or three years.
But for Adobe, it was a definite win. They have more than doubled their revenue. I don't know if they have attracted more users or just better 'milked' their existing user base 

Truth is, at least from my standpoint, that Adobe has severely cut down on their product development cycles...
If people pay you per month just to be able to use your software, you can get a bit lazy. Maybe add new feature now and then. Or not. Maybe some bug fixes.
But, really. They pay you every month, why get yourself into a frenzy to invent...?

But if you have to invent features and enhancements to make your users actually want to upgrade / support the product (like in the case of IMatch) - that's totally different.
Which is why I'm already working on some big-time IMatch 2021 features...this will be so good...

[plastikman]

Truth is, at least from my standpoint, that Adobe has severely cut down on their product development cycles...
If people pay you per month just to be able to use your software, you can get a bit lazy. Maybe add new feature now and then. Or not. Maybe some bug fixes.
But, really. They pay you every month, why get yourself into a frenzy to invent...?

But if you have to invent features and enhancements to make your users actually want to upgrade / support the product (like in the case of IMatch) - that's totally different.
Which is why I'm already working on some big-time IMatch 2021 features...this will be so good...

That's my opinion as well, Adobe has became complacent. Only lately they're stepping it up a bit again (Trying to fix broken Lightroom Classic, public roadmap for Photoshop for iPad, Adobe UX generally had a good development run, and Premiere Pro finally just announced GPU acceleration). But for many I reckon it is too little too late. But you're right, the typical Graphic Designer/Publisher/Animation Artist will likely stick with Adobe because it is embedded throughout the whole industry and the whole infrastructure discriminates against anything else really. But one can still hope.... I would like to see a strong competitor to Adobe, too bad Apple gave up last decade (abandoning Aperture and their VFX their compositor), they had a fighting chance.

Adobe's offerings are often average, instead of good enough, and from my experience way more buggy and lower performant than their competitors. All understandable, given that they bought their market position over decades and most applications are still on their old CPU-heavy codebases, and I bet few of it has really been unified -- it all appears like years of patchwork to me -- , but this is starting to change now with Adobe UX, Lightroom Cloud, Photoshop iPad etc who are all part of a new push with modern technologies, design language and codebase. But the privacy/computer invasion issue remains.

[GrantRobertson]

Are their cloud products so important that there alternatives cannot be used?

They have written their cloud servers and desktop software so there are at least some features that will only work when you use their cloud and not any other cloud. Can't remember which ones. I dumped everything from Adobe, except an old copy of Acrobat Pro, years ago.

That's why I'm here, pestering Mario, all the time.

[loweskid]

I have Lightroom on my system but only for one reason - in order to use the brilliant plug-in LRTimelapse by Gunther Wegner.  Another great piece of software from Germany..

[Lincoln]

I have Lightroom on my system but only for one reason - in order to use the brilliant plug-in LRTimelapse by Gunther Wegner.  Another great piece of software from Germany..

Have you looked at qDSLRDashboard which can run on a tablet out in the field.
https://dslrdashboard.info/timelapse-photography-2020-ebook-by-gunther-wegner/

[loweskid]

Have you looked at qDSLRDashboard which can run on a tablet out in the field.
https://dslrdashboard.info/timelapse-photography-2020-ebook-by-gunther-wegner/

I did look at dslrdashboard but it was quite a while ago and no doubt it's been updated several times since then.  I'll have another look at it sometime in the future.  Two problems though - I don't have a decent tablet and, for me, getting out in the field is on hold at the moment no matter what our government might say.

[Jingo]

But the privacy/computer invasion issue remains.

If you are truly that concerned, you can always run offline like one of my clients does... his machine NEVER touches the internet... he installs from USB stick (downloaded from another computer) and his PC is 100% offline.. he even has an XP machine that he runs with.. and had custom built by a company that still makes and supports them!

[medgeek]

If you are truly that concerned, you can always run offline like one of my clients does... his machine NEVER touches the internet... he installs from USB stick (downloaded from another computer) and his PC is 100% offline.. he even has an XP machine that he runs with.. and had custom built by a company that still makes and supports them!

You're describing air gap networking:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_(networking)

The computer security guru Bruce Schneier has written about how he does it:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/air_gaps.html

[Jingo]

If you are truly that concerned, you can always run offline like one of my clients does... his machine NEVER touches the internet... he installs from USB stick (downloaded from another computer) and his PC is 100% offline.. he even has an XP machine that he runs with.. and had custom built by a company that still makes and supports them!

The computer security guru Bruce Schneier has written about how he does it:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/air_gaps.html

Many thx for this very interesting article... my client's process actually has an official name... who knew!!