Just stop using it!

[Scott M]

It’s two computers at a time. You can install the software on as many computers as you want but it will force you to log out of one of your first two machines if you want to use it on a third machine.

Then there is an issue with installing version 2023 on a MS Surface Pro 11 (the current model), as it fails during installation.

 

[Capn Jack]

Then there is an issue with installing version 2023 on a MS Surface Pro 11 (the current model), as it fails during installation.

"...as it fails during installation." is rather vague because that phrase encompasses everything from "you are out of licenses" to "it doesn't install on surface" to bugs in the Adobe installer or Windows.
What messages does it give when it fails? That assumes, of course, that the failure mode isn't a crash of some kind.

The Photoshop Elements FAQs seem to indicate you can install the software on only two computers and use only one at a time:

FAQs | Adobe Photoshop Elements 2026

Frequently asked questions and answers for Adobe Photoshop Elements.

www.adobe.com

Can I install Photoshop Elements on more than one computer?​

You can install your product on up to two computers that aren’t being used simultaneously. If you want to move your product to a new computer, simply choose Help > Sign Out in the product on the computer that has the active license. That will deactivate it. Then you can install the product on your new computer.

NOTE: You must be online while deactivating the product.

 

[Weka]

Im lucky work pays for all my Adobe products. Yes the world is going AI who cares, again you dont have to use it.
Ive been down the same path with Windows and Linux years ago ........

People will throw their toys out the cot but most of the time they pick them back up once they have cooled down

 

[West Coast Birder]

"...as it fails during installation." is rather vague because that phrase encompasses everything from "you are out of licenses" to "it doesn't install on surface" to bugs in the Adobe installer or Windows.
What messages does it give when it fails? That assumes, of course, that the failure mode isn't a crash of some kind.

The Photoshop Elements FAQs seem to indicate you can install the software on only two computers and use only one at a time:

FAQs | Adobe Photoshop Elements 2026

Frequently asked questions and answers for Adobe Photoshop Elements.

www.adobe.com

Interesting. So the rules are different for Elements versus the rest of the Adobe Suite which seems to allow for 2 at a time.

 

[Capn Jack]

Interesting. So the rules are different for Elements versus the rest of the Adobe Suite which seems to allow for 2 at a time.

It seem to be the same for other products- see:

https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/using/install-apps-number-of-computers.html

The page indicates it was updated August, 2024.

 

[Nature's Spectrum]

Interesting. So the rules are different for Elements versus the rest of the Adobe Suite which seems to allow for 2 at a time.

I have the complete suite and I can install on as many systems as I want but can only have two active at any given time.

 

[West Coast Birder]

I have the complete suite and I can install on as many systems as I want but can only have two active at any given time.

That has been my experience as well but with the reduced “Photographer package” which has LR, PS, and a few other things but not the whole creative palette of applications.

 

[Mike_d]

50% price increase for Photography plan unless you pay annually.

Adobe 2025 Pricing Update FAQ | Matt Kloskowski

mattk.com

 

[paddler4]

50% price increase for Photography plan unless you pay annually.

Adobe 2025 Pricing Update FAQ | Matt Kloskowski

mattk.com

Not bad. Since Adobe started the subscription service in 2013, the CPI has increased by about 1/3, which means that Adobe's costs have increased substantially. During those 11 years, they increased the price of the photographer's plan by 0%. Now they are offering to keep the price at the 2013 level if you are willing to pay annually.

Discounts for annual payment are very common across many parts of the economy. For example, my insurance company does this, as does Smugmug, where I post my photos.

 

[mcoren]

Been there, done that, came back to Adobe.

I was an LR user with "perpetual" versions 5 and 6. When an OS update broke v6 about five years ago, I purchased a well-known competing program, rather than pay a monthly fee to Adobe.

I used that for a couple of years, but eventually switched back to Adobe, and I've been happy with it ever since. Here's why I switched back:

- The other program produced a lot of visible artifacts in exported JPEGs, especially in areas of grass or animal fur. I worked around these by exporting a full-size TIFF, opening that in GIMP, and reducing it and exporting from there, but that's hardly an efficient workflow for a "professional" program.

- Adobe is quick to add support for new bodies and lenses. When I got my R7 in 2022, I wanted to use CRAW, but the other program didn't support it. I emailed their tech support, and a representative told me they had "no current plans" (at that time) to support CRAW. But he encouraged me to go into their user community, where users can make suggestions and "vote" on what features should be added next.

- As the industry standard, Adobe software has lots of independent and third party support and training available. There's information at Adobe's web site, as well as third party training courses, books, YouTube videos from other users, and an online educational summit. The other company had some basic free videos on their web site, but most of the detailed stuff was behind a paywall. Wanna learn to use their product to its maximum? That's another annual cost. There were some decent user videos on YouTube, but nothing like what exists for Adobe.

For all of these benefits, I don't feel $10/month is unreasonable. But that's me, and I know that everybody's priorities are different.

 

[NickL]

I started with Photoshop back in the late Nineties, used it when I was scanning slides and negs. I thought Lightroom was a fantastic step forward for digital photography paired with Photoshop. I ran a successful business for 20 years using both programmes. I dabbled with others of course during the years of innovation in the digital darkroom. However I never found anything that came close to Adobe. I think the value for money programmes, and the very regular updates are worth every penny. I spend more on Costa coffee a month.

 

[ShipleyNW]

If I was a casual user of Adobe products, just breaking it out for special shots and projects (like the way I use Photoshop), I might be a little indignant over having to keep a subscription open even if I'm not using the software that month.

I'm a hobbyist, but not a casual user. Short of browsers, Lightroom Classic is my most-used application software. I use up my subscription's worth every month. Maybe it's not the best for everything, but it's stable, it's solid, it's bulletproof. I spend no time on finicky maintenance with anything native to LRC. Nothing ever crashes, updates go in without a hitch and I don't have to relearn the app afterwards or wonder where they put stuff. Big updates are covered in the press and I know what to expect before I install them. The only problems I ever have involve 3rd party plugins.

All that alone is worth the price of a subscription for me. And that doesn't even count what I use it for. Besides being good software, it's a damn good photo editor and catalog manager. I feel like I'm getting that part for free.

 

[Nature's Spectrum]

If I was a casual user of Adobe products, just breaking it out for special shots and projects (like the way I use Photoshop), I might be a little indignant over having to keep a subscription open even if I'm not using the software that month.

I'm a hobbyist, but not a casual user. Short of browsers, Lightroom Classic is my most-used application software. I use up my subscription's worth every month. Maybe it's not the best for everything, but it's stable, it's solid, it's bulletproof. I spend no time on finicky maintenance with anything native to LRC. Nothing ever crashes, updates go in without a hitch and I don't have to relearn the app afterwards or wonder where they put stuff. Big updates are covered in the press and I know what to expect before I install them. The only problems I ever have involve 3rd party plugins.

All that alone is worth the price of a subscription for me. And that doesn't even count what I use it for. Besides being good software, it's a damn good photo editor and catalog manager. I feel like I'm getting that part for free.

Agreed. Lightroom touches every image I have as well as keeping track of it and where I've sent it. Considering I've paid ~$100 for software that I use sparingly (topaz) ~$100 a year for Lightroom and photoshop is a bargain.

 

[paddler4]

Agreed. Lightroom touches every image I have as well as keeping track of it and where I've sent it. Considering I've paid ~$100 for software that I use sparingly (topaz) ~$100 a year for Lightroom and photoshop is a bargain.

I agree. Years ago, I used LR mostly for rendering raws and basic edits. Over time, it has become vastly more powerful, and I've learned to use more of it's functions. It's the home base for all of my photos, regardless of how or where they have been processed. I don't make extensive use of the DAM functions, but I do some--for example, I use the collections function quite a bit and find it invaluable. It has a superb printing module. It has plugins for lots of other things I do or use. For example, to upload files, I don't even need to create a JPEG copy; I have a plug-in that creates a JPEG to my specs on the fly, uploads it to Smugmug, and then deletes it. Another creates TIFFs of as many files as I select, again to my specs, loads my stacking program (Zerene), and loads all of the temporary TIFFs into it. And the editing functions are now very powerful compared to what they were. And that doesn't even start on the enormous power of Photoshop.

Then there is the cost of learning to use all of this horsepower. That took me countless hours over years. I have no interest in re-doing that.

 

[Nature's Spectrum]

I agree. Years ago, I used LR mostly for rendering raws and basic edits. Over time, it has become vastly more powerful, and I've learned to use more of it's functions. It's the home base for all of my photos, regardless of how or where they have been processed. I don't make extensive use of the DAM functions, but I do some--for example, I use the collections function quite a bit and find it invaluable. It has a superb printing module. It has plugins for lots of other things I do or use. For example, to upload files, I don't even need to create a JPEG copy; I have a plug-in that creates a JPEG to my specs on the fly, uploads it to Smugmug, and then deletes it. Another creates TIFFs of as many files as I select, again to my specs, loads my stacking program (Zerene), and loads all of the temporary TIFFs into it. And the editing functions are now very powerful compared to what they were. And that doesn't even start on the enormous power of Photoshop.

Then there is the cost of learning to use all of this horsepower. That took me countless hours over years. I have no interest in re-doing that.

sounds like you know of Jeffrey Friedl's plugins I use many of them as well. I use Virtual Copies a lot, basically to track versions of the master image. Since some images require a little bit different processing for web display, it is useful. I also create a virtual copy that I send to stock agencies. That allows me to keep track of their specific references, keywords, etc. as well as a snapshot of sorts of the version that was actually submitted (if I were to process the master differently later.

 

[paddler4]

sounds like you know of Jeffrey Friedl's plugins I use many of them as well. I use Virtual Copies a lot, basically to track versions of the master image. Since some images require a little bit different processing for web display, it is useful. I also create a virtual copy that I send to stock agencies. That allows me to keep track of their specific references, keywords, etc. as well as a snapshot of sorts of the version that was actually submitted (if I were to process the master differently later.

Yes, I was referring to Friedl's plug-in for exporting to Smugmug.

I don't use virtual copies (apart from soft proofs) all that much but find them very valuable when I do use them. for example, they are extremely helpful if you want to compare two ways of processing an image, say, B&W and color. And I use the soft proof virtual copies all the time. You can soft-proof without them, but it's really convenient to store the proof for any given paper as a virtual copy.

I don't use keywords as much as I should, but among other things, I use them to flag where I have sent photos.

The usual sequence is to finish in LR before exporting to PS, but I find it's really helpful to be able to do a few edits in LR after PS. That's when I do soft-proofing and cropping for a specific print.