Adobe's 'base' Photography plan increases by nearly $200 a year
Adobe has announced major changes to the subscription models for its popular Photography Plan that includes editing software Photoshop and Lightroom.
From today, new signups to the package will face significant price increases, however existing users will escape the price jump, with one caveat – they must shift to an annual, one-off payment to retain their previous rate.
This means that Adobe has dropped the ‘base’ Photography Plan that previously cost $171.84 AUD per year with 20GB of online storage.
Now, new users will pay $371.84 per year, or $30.99 a month, although it now includes 1TB of online storage. The previous 1TB plan was $343.07 per year.
On a monthly basis, if an existing user continues with their 20GB plan, the plan will increase from $14.29 ($171.47 a year) to $23.99 per month ($287.88 a year), however this can be avoided by switching to an annual plan, prepaid which should remain at $171.47 per year. If you are currently on a monthly 20GB plan, look out for an email from Adobe warning of the upcoming changes to your plan.
This means that the previous cheapest way into the Photographer's package was $14.29 a month ($171.47). It will now be $30.99 a month ($371.84), an increase of nearly $200.
On the Adobe FAQ page for the Creative Cloud Photography (20GB) pricing changes the company says “The Creative Cloud Photography plan (20GB) will be discontinued as of January 15, 2025, and will no longer be available to new subscribers. Adobe will, however, continue to honour existing subscriptions until users decide to cancel.”
Under the heading of What is the price change for the Creative Cloud Photography plan (20GB) it says ‘Annual prepaid: No increase, the price will remain A$171.47 per year’.
Interestingly, on checking my personal Adobe 20GB Photography Plan subscription profile page (which I've had since 2014), it currently says that my next payment due in May 2025 will be for $191.93 – an increase of roughly $20. It's not a huge, or even undue increase, but there is some mixed messaging there. We've reached out to Adobe for an explanation for this.
At the same time, the Creative Cloud Annual Prepaid package, which includes the entire suite of Creative Cloud products has also seen an increase. For new users it has increased from $871.07 to $1,163.88 per year (with 100GB of online storage), though it's currently discounted price at 50% off for 3 months making it $1,018.38. For current subscribers, the price will increase to $959.90 per year.
In a statement on its website, Adobe says the price increases to its Photographer’s Package are the result of the increasing value that’s been added since its launch over a decade ago.
"Since its launch over a decade ago, the Photography plan (20GB) has maintained its competitive pricing, all the while expanding to include highly sought-after apps like Lightroom for mobile, Photoshop for iPad and the web, among others." says the statement.
"Recent additions to your membership include tools and capabilities like Select Subject, Remove Background, and the Contextual Task Bar in Photoshop and Lens Blur, Denoise, and hundreds of Premium Presets in Lightroom and Lightroom Classic.”
“In addition, we are committed to supporting photographers and continuing to innovate across our platform, including Lightroom Classic."
At the same time, Adobe has also invested heavily in AI technology through its Firefly software, which is sold as a standalone product for $7.95 a month with 100 monthly generative credits used for creating AI generated work.
The new 1TB Photographer's Package includes Firefly and also comes with 500 generative credits. On the original 20GB plan, users only received 250 credits. As an example, a single use of the Generative Fill action in Photoshop uses one credit.
However, to further soften the blow of the increases, Adobe is running a temporary discount on the Lightroom Photoshop plan. From now until February 26, the 1TB plan is 25% off for the first six months, making the cost $23.23 a month for the first six months of the 12-month contract.
So, who needs 1TB of cloud storage?
Ultimately the value in the package and whether users can stomach the increases comes down to how much benefit you’ll get from the additional storage that comes from the 1TB offering.
'Adobe Lightroom' (the mobile, online, and app version) has been a significant success for Adobe, and has reeled in a new generation of younger users and content creators who rely on cloud storage to access their images across devices or remotely through any browser.
Many professional 'legacy' users, or as Adobe refers to them, 'power users,' prefer Lightroom Classic. While it does offers cloud storage, Classic is primarily designed for the bulk processing of images – which can be anywhere from tens, to hundreds or even thousands of images.
Uploading thousands of images from a single shoot to the cloud is impractical, making the value of 1TB of cloud storage less apparent.
Is the Photography Plan 1TB still good value?
Time is one of our most valuable resources, and in the past couple of years, the latest AI updates to Lightroom and Photoshop have significantly reduced the time spent in post-production.
Features like Denoise, Background Selection, Detecting (masking) People(s) body parts (such as teeth), and Generative Fill have made the editing process much faster and more efficient. So in this light, it is still reasonable value.
Interestingly, apart from being able to use Lightroom and Photoshop, the Photographer's Plan also comes with quite a few unheralded extra apps such as: Adobe Fonts, Creative Cloud Libraries, Behance, Adobe Firefly, Bridge (already free), and two very useful web apps – Adobe Portfolio and Adobe Express.
Adobe Portfolio allows users to create professional looking, easy-to-build, template-based websites. It is particularly popular among photographers, designers, artists, and other creatives looking to display their projects in an aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-navigate format.
In fact, just purchasing a WIX basic template website will set you back $192 a year, so we could say that the inclusion of Adobe Portfolio is a good deal for photographers wanting an easy-to-build and maintain personal website.
Adobe Express (formerly Adobe Spark) is an easy-to-use, all-in-one app designed for creating a wide range of visual content. It simplifies graphic design, video editing, and content creation, making it accessible to users of all skill levels.
Available on mobile and desktop, Adobe Express is ideal for creating social media posts, flyers, banners, logos, short videos, complete web pages, and more.