[Steve]

Adobe Further Extends Leadership in Digital Photography Raw File Workflows
Adobe Acquires Technology Assets of Pixmantec ApS

LONDON — June 26, 2006 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced it has acquired the technology assets of Pixmantec ApS, makers of digital imaging software that provides advanced workflow management and processing capabilities for digital camera raw files. The acquisition strengthens Adobe's leadership position in raw processing.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

"With high quality digital cameras now within reach of every photographer, customers are gravitating to raw file formats that allow them to get more control over final results," said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe®. "By combining Pixmantec's raw processing technology and expertise with our own, we're continuing to deliver on the promise that even your existing raw files can be processed with increasing quality as our software technology evolves."

Pixmantec is a privately held company headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark and currently ships the RawShooter® line of digital photography software products. Adobe plans to integrate Pixmantec raw processing technologies into Lightroom™ and wherever customers will be working with raw files.

In preparation for this integration, the Pixmantec RawShooter Premium product is being discontinued, though the free RawShooter Essentials product will continue to be available until the Lightroom public beta program is completed. Existing Pixmantec customers will continue to be supported by Adobe and will be provided with an upgrade path to the Adobe digital imaging product family.

Adobe believes this acquisition will not have a material financial impact on the company.

So does that mean the end of Rawshooter professional??

[silkstone]

That is seriously bad news.

OK, I can accept that many people like Adobe products (and prices?), but I prefer to shop elsewhere, and RSP + Paint Shop Pro is an excellent combination.

So now it sounds as if Adobe is buying out the opposition and incorporating Rawshooter into its own proprietary software, in an attempt to force people away from the competition.

If I didn't dislike Adobe before, I certainly do now.

[Steve]

Thats exactly as I see it to Silkstone

The fact that it is to become incorerated into Lightroom and no longer available as seperate product is very bad news for the people that have already developed a good working relationship and workflow with RSP.

As you say, Adobe is not known for reasonable prices on the majority of their software and since I regard this as a premium product, I can't see them supporting it well in the future at its current price point.

[silkstone]

Yes, I've just had a rant about it on the Pixmantec forum where there are a lot of unhappy people right now.

The shame is that RSP wasn't far away from being an affordable, full-blown image editor in its own right. It only needed a few tools for cloning etc to do what most people needed most of the time. Instead it has been hijacked by Adobe for incorporation into their overpriced software, thereby depriving us of an alternative image processing route.

OK, RSP will continue to work, but only until you upgrade to a new camera that isn't supported. The question is whether to stick with RSP until then, or find an alternative (Bibble?) to save spending more time on the learning curve of an obsolete product.

[Steve]

we could just be pig headed and use the free version which I am assuming will be updated to take care of upcomming new cameras.

Or there is one that might just be the ticket for you mate...its called...Silkypix

See this thread for details.

[orangepeel]

Originally Posted by silkstone

Instead it has been hijacked by Adobe for incorporation into their overpriced software, thereby depriving us of an alternative image processing route.

If there was a fair price for you to buy photoshop (as a paid RSP user) what would you judge as a fair price to pay?

Would be interesting to compare what is a human beings idea of "reasonable" and what the Adobe marketing machine feel they can squeeze


This is ignoring any philisophical issues you may have with adobe or photoshop - unless of course they are very strong

[Steve]

I use PS a lot and bought a legitmate version

Although it is the industry standard and a very proficient tool at what it was designed for I believe it is over priced by a substantial amount. You only have to compare it Paint Shop Pro to work that one out

I also bought RawShooter Premium so where does that leave me with future upgrades, am I now expected to dig my hands in my pockets to buy adobe Lightroom when I suposedly already own superior software from the 'same' company.

[silkstone]

Well, at present I use RSP and Paint Shop Pro X, which together do everything I need. I've been using PSP since version 3, so it was the upgrade price from PSP 9 which was less than £40. RSP cost about £57 including VAT, so the pair were under £100. Even at full price for PSP X it would be less than £150 for both.

I reckon that's a fair price given the capabilities of the two packages. Last time I looked at the price of PS CS2 I drowned my keyboard in coffee.

[orangepeel]

well they don't do a competative upgrade, however upgrades from previous versions of PS are £125 wheras upgrades from the hobbled versions like photoshop le and photodelux are £365

so watch this space really...

[silkstone]

I'm not even sure how Lightroom and Photoshop are meant to interact. I've read the words on the Adobe site (digital asset management, enhanced workflow, blah, blah) but they're largely gobbledegook and marketing speak. There must be plenty of PS users who have bought RSP for RAW processing in preference to ACR, so they are also faced with having to buy another piece of Adobe software they never knew they needed.

[Dave]

I haven't looked at all the details, but quite often firms buy out the competition & then either just rebadge best bits & chuck rest away, or attempt to integrate in the future into one suite.

[stepheno]

Can't say I'm a happy bunny at that news. But at least I have a paid for RSP and with that and CS2 I can't see me forking out again for Lightroom. RSP was an excellent and cheap way for new photographers to get into shooting RAW but as said they are just buying off the opposition.

regards

[Steve]

Further information about the Adobe purchase of Pixmantec assets from the Adobe press release

Q: Why has Adobe acquired Pixmantec?
A: One of the great advantages of working with raw images is that, as the technology for raw processing continues to improve, the quality you can bring out of even your older images continues to improve as well. It is for this reason that Adobe continues to invest in our own raw processing technology. The acquisition of Pixmantec will allow Adobe to accelerate our rate of improvement and sets us up to deliver the world’s best raw processing solutions. Combining the best of Adobe’s existing raw technology with the best of Pixmantec’s technology will deliver noticeable improvements to photographers. More importantly, the expertise of Pixmantec founders Kenneth Tang Laerke and Michael Jonsson—developed through their work creating the RawShooter products as well as through their work on Capture One software—will be a great complement to our own expertise and promises substantial technology advances in the future.

Q: What are the plans for the RawShooter line of products?
A: The RawShooter | Premium product will be taken off the market as soon as
existing obligations with distribution partners are fulfilled. Special pricing that will make it easier for RawShooter | Premium customers to migrate to other Adobe products will be announced shortly. The free RawShooter | Essentials product will remain available as a download from the Adobe Web site until shortly after Lightroom 1.0 is released as a shipping product.

Q: Why does Adobe plan to discontinue the RawShooter products?
A: Pixmantec has strong technology which has significant value for making Adobe’s own raw processing solutions better. Adobe already offers multiple workflows for processing raw images. The new Adobe Lightroom software—currently in public beta for Mac and soon available for Windows—provides a photography-centric environment that will handle the full workflow from import, sorting, developing, and storage, through to presentation and output. The Raw Shooter products do not offer any significant functionality that is not already, or will not be shortly, offered
in Lightroom, so continuing this product line would only cause confusion for our customers.

Q: What level of support will Adobe provide for existing RawShooter customers?
A: Pixmantec’s primary customer support offering has been an online forum where customers can post questions to be answered by other customers or by Pixmantec staff. We will migrate these forums to the user-to-user forums on Adobe.com

Q: Lightroom is currently available only for the Mac platform, and RawShooter is available on Windows. Do you plan to turn RawShooter into your Windows version of Lightroom?
A: No. Our Windows version of Lightroom is already well under development
and will be available as a public beta shortly. We will be taking the best technology in RawShooter and incorporating it into both the Mac and Windows versions of Lightroom.

Q: Will Adobe continue to provide camera compatibility updates for the RawShooter products?
A: No, because these products will be discontinued, we will not be focusing our efforts on any updates.

Q: After the discontinuation of the RawShooter products, which Adobe product will be the right choice for RawShooter customers?
A: Of course, customers can continue to use the existing RawShooter products for as long as they like, but they may want to move to another product to gain compatibility with raw formats from future cameras. The most appropriate Adobe product for RawShooter users will be Adobe Lightroom, because it provides efficient raw processing within a photography-centric environment.

[silkstone]

The Raw Shooter products do not offer any significant functionality that is not already, or will not be shortly, offered
in Lightroom....

In which case why did they buy out Pixmantec, given that Lightroom beta is already out (for Mac) so cannot include Rawshooter technology?

Well that's easy isn't it, and you don't have to be too cynical either.