Has anyone removed Adobe CC completely from their PC?

It's not just the NLE -- it's all the other stuff that is included for a lousy $60 a month. Obviouslly, nobody needs all of them, and yes, there are 3rd party knock-offs for some apps, but can you work as quickly? Can you interface seamlessly with clients? Just take Bridge for example. It's possibly the best productivity-boosting app in the whole Adobe suite and well worth the entire cost of the subscription all on its own. What is someone going to replace that with if they remove all Adobe from their machine? If there's a good substitute for Bridge I'd sure like to learn what it is.

Adobe Premiere Pro
Bridge
Photoshop
Illustrator
Acrobat Pro
InDesign
After Effects
Lightroom
Adobe XD
Animate
Lightroom Classic
Dreamweaver
Audition
InCopy
Character Animator
Capture
Adobe Fresco
Adobe Express
Photoshop Express
Media Encoder
Aero
Adobe Scan
Fill & Sign
Acrobat Reader
Adobe Firefly
100GB of cloud storage
Adobe Fonts
Creative Cloud Libraries
 
Doug Jensen said:
It's not just the NLE -- it's all the other stuff that is included for a lousy $60 a month. Obviouslly, nobody needs all of them, and yes, there are 3rd party knock-offs for some apps, but can you work as quickly? Can you interface seamlessly with clients? Just take Bridge for example. It's possibly the best productivity-boosting app in the whole Adobe suite and well worth the entire cost of the subscription all on its own. What is someone going to replace that with if they remove all Adobe from their machine? If there's a good substitute for Bridge I'd sure like to learn what it is.
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How do you use Bridge? As in, you personally.
 
rob norton said:
How do you use Bridge? As in, you personally.
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I use it to manage, sort, organize, copy, batch name, preview, and delete just about every kind of file on my computer -- not just visual assets -- without actually opening them. It is my main filing and organization system for everything. I'll admit that there's probably nothing you can't do with Bridge that you can't do some other way if you jump through enough hoops, but is is the speed and efficiency of Bridge that makes it an essential tool for anyone who values their time.

When I'm looking for a particular graphic, Photoshop file, image, or song on my computer, and I find it in Bridge, I can just drag and drop it right into Premiere. I can highlight a thumbnail and click my SPACE BAR and view the image full-screen. I can then use the arrow keys to go to back and forth through all other images in the same folder to see them full-screen too.

Here's an example from yesterday: I shot about 200 wildlife RAW stills with my A1. First thing I did when I got home was to use Bridge to navigate to the memory card. In about 2 minutes I previewed (full-screen view) all 200 shots and got rid of about 150 of them just by hitting the delete key when I saw one I didn't want to keep. The previews are instantaeous with no loading or waiting. And there's no confirmation messages after deleting or other BS to slow me down. It is great to use the arrow buttons to go back and forth between two similar shots and choose the one I like best and hit the delete key to get rid of the other. Kind of like an eye doctor asking you which prescription you like better. You can't do that so fast and easily with any other program that I am aware of.

After I cut the number of images down to 50 potentially good ones, I then ingested them to my SSD. Then I used Bridge to batch re-name them to identify the shoot and location. Then I imported just those 50 images into Lightroom for actual photo processing.

That's just one example. You have to use it yourself to really see how it can speed up and organize everything you do on your computer with all kinds of file types, including PDFs, DOCs, Keynotes, etc.. And I'm sure I'm only scratching the surface of how a power-user uses Bridge.
 
Doug Jensen said:
$700 per year for the entire Adobe suite is something any professional should be able to budget for. Peanuts. It's the biggest bargain in professional software ever, except maybe Resolve. If $700 is too much, I question someone's long-term ability to earn ta decent living. Ya gotta spend money to make money. And if having knock-off software was to cost me even just 30 minutes of wasted time per month, that'd be enough to cover the whole Adobe suite.
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It’s not that I ‘can’t afford’ it. It’s that I choose not to waste money on it. I have not run across anything that I have not been able to do with the tools I have substituted for Adobe, in any client job in the last 15 years. And I have saved enough money from not subscribing to buy a Sony FX6 and a M1 Max computer. If I can do everything I need with a one time payment of $299 for an NLE and $50 for photo editing there is no way I’m going to pay Adobe fees every month.
 
alaskacameradude said:
It’s not that I ‘can’t afford’ it. It’s that I choose not to waste money on it. I have not run across anything that I have not been able to do with the tools I have substituted for Adobe, in any client job in the last 15 years. And I have saved enough money from not subscribing to buy a Sony FX6 and a M1 Max computer. If I can do everything I need with a one time payment of $299 for an NLE and $50 for photo editing there is no way I’m going to pay Adobe fees every month.
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Same here. I have bought many items that I regularly use, like recent M4 MacBook, Lenses, Tripod, Lighting and other support gear that make me more productive or faster... that I probably could not have afforded HAD I been paying for subscription software that doesn't.
 
Well, it all depends on how much time the Adobe suite (or any other software) saves you; how busy you are; and what your hourly time is worth. In my case, if it saves me even just 30 minutes per month, it's easily paid for itself. And it absolutely does that, by a long shot. To other people, it might not make any difference at all to their bottom line. Time is money. And I can't make more time.

If someone is just a freelance shooter, and doesn't offer the turnkey services of a production company (writing, planning, shooting, editing, graphics, music, animation, prompter, footage archiving and long-term management, etc.) then I can understand why Adobe wouddn't be worth the cost. Fortunately, I don't live in that world. Corporate video, baby, where you offer turnkey services, that's where the money is. And you have to have the right tools that allow you to be fast and efficient. If saving $60 a month is how you need to justify spending on other necessary gear, that's a sad commentary on your situation. Personally, it is the use of Adobe software and other tools of the trade that are make possible to buy whatever computers, drives, cameras, lenses, audio, lighting, etc. I want to own without even batting any eye at the cost. Peanuts in the big scheme of things.
 
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I've removed myself mostly from the Adobe system ten years ago. I still pay $10 a month for Photoshop, but that's it. Premiere, AE, and Audition have all been replaced by Resolve and it does it better. I'm on the Studio version which came with my camera. Most of my paid work is corporate stuff and the workflow I have is faster and more stable than what Adobe could ever offer.
 
Doug Jensen said:
I use it to manage, sort, organize, copy, batch name, preview, and delete just about every kind of file on my computer -- not just visual assets -- without actually opening them. It is my main filing and organization system for everything. I'll admit that there's probably nothing you can't do with Bridge that you can't do some other way if you jump through enough hoops, but is is the speed and efficiency of Bridge that makes it an essential tool for anyone who values their time.

When I'm looking for a particular graphic, Photoshop file, image, or song on my computer, and I find it in Bridge, I can just drag and drop it right into Premiere. I can highlight a thumbnail and click my SPACE BAR and view the image full-screen. I can then use the arrow keys to go to back and forth through all other images in the same folder to see them full-screen too.

Here's an example from yesterday: I shot about 200 wildlife RAW stills with my A1. First thing I did when I got home was to use Bridge to navigate to the memory card. In about 2 minutes I previewed (full-screen view) all 200 shots and got rid of about 150 of them just by hitting the delete key when I saw one I didn't want to keep. The previews are instantaeous with no loading or waiting. And there's no confirmation messages after deleting or other BS to slow me down. It is great to use the arrow buttons to go back and forth between two similar shots and choose the one I like best and hit the delete key to get rid of the other. Kind of like an eye doctor asking you which prescription you like better. You can't do that so fast and easily with any other program that I am aware of.

After I cut the number of images down to 50 potentially good ones, I then ingested them to my SSD. Then I used Bridge to batch re-name them to identify the shoot and location. Then I imported just those 50 images into Lightroom for actual photo processing.

That's just one example. You have to use it yourself to really see how it can speed up and organize everything you do on your computer with all kinds of file types, including PDFs, DOCs, Keynotes, etc.. And I'm sure I'm only scratching the surface of how a power-user uses Bridge.
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Thanks Doug! It sounds like Bridge is one of the most useful product in the adobe suite. FCP/PP/DR seem like they're all doing the same thing and it's just a preference. I'm sure pro editors could have an edit off and each program would have the edge with certain tasks but I'd be surprised if any NLE ran away with it. Rather than manually timing or other 3rd party apps, I think it'd be great if any NLE could tell you exactly how long you spent working on a project, as well as the number of steps it took so you could see where there's room to improve.
 
Another Adobe Bridge user here - really integral to my workflow for stills because Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) ) can be launched from within Bridge (if you have a licence for Photoshop) so there's no need to do the more straightforward edits via Photoshop. Plus for media management it's very good for batch processes etc as Doug said. I've used it for about ten years, I guess it's what you get comfortable with but it's my go to for asset management and editing.

60% of my work is stills and I often have to work with 2000+ images from an event. I've got that down to around 3-4 hours with Bridge and ACR including shortlisting, exposure changes, cropping and file resizing to have them ready for website upload.

I started using Resolve in December for new work (getting there but it's a bit of a head scratch sometimes). I like it but I'll keep the Adobe suite because we often get clients who send across After Effects projects that need tweaking.
 
I think it works fine using it to manage media assets as a free version and yes it's configurable to launch other software through file type associations (just the same as you can do with windows explorer/mac finder). You can only run the internal photo editing (Adobe Camera Raw) with a paid subscription though.

We've got a few scripts that we've written for it as well to customise our workflow, Adobe gave it a lot of attention early on (around 2018) with a scripting guide and a script editing app (Extendscript).
 
Kubicixfactor said:
We've got a few scripts that we've written for it as well to customise our workflow, Adobe gave it a lot of attention early on (around 2018) with a scripting guide and a script editing app (Extendscript).
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Cool. That's exactly the kind of stuff I was referring to when I said in an earlier post that I was just scratching the surface of how a real power-user would incorporate Bridge into their workflow. Also, I forgot to mention that Bridge is also indispensable in the management of my stock footage business.
 
A Google search does reveal alternatives to Adobe Bridge, although you may need to pay for them. If you've already established a system that works for you, there's no reason to search out for an alternative.
 
briandrys1 said:
If you've already established a system that works for you, there's no reason to search out for an alternative.
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That's not necessarily true. Success in business is all about speed and productivity. So, even though someone may already have "established a system" of working on a typewriter, it may actually be better for them to consider upgrading to a word processor. Maybe you shoot on film and I shoot digital. Maybe you shoot on Betcam and I shoot on ultra-fast memory cards. Maybe you ride a bicycle to your shoots and I drive a car. Maybe you edit on a 10-year old computer and I edit on a M4 Mac. Just because you may like your current way of doing things, doesn't change the fact that your way may not actually be the best way for YOU. I can think of plenty of examples of why it would be worth it to consider alternative solutions that will help someone get their work done faster and better -- even if they think they are content with the status quo. So, to say there is "no reason to search for an alternative" is ridiculous. Ignorance is bliss.
 
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