Angry Pantone designers are charging Adobe $15 for colors

Hell hath no fury like an Adobe designer who can’t see the colors he thought he actually paid for.

Designers using Adobe’s Creative Suite tools, including Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, are angry about a license change that forces them to pay Pantone an extra $15 a month (or $90 a year) to work with Adobe’s featured colors. Inside the application last weekAdobe has removed support for proprietary Pantone colors, the preferred industry standard, from its applications, due to countless designers who used Pantone colors with files. completely black Instead and the following message:

“This file contains Pantone colors that have been removed due to Pantone licensing changes with Adobe and replaced with black. To resolve the issue, click “Learn more,” read the message posted on Twitter. Guaranteed as authentic By Adobe, whom he blames Pantone ft.

“Pantone has already requested the removal because they want to charge customers directly,” tweeted Scott Belsky, Adobe’s chief product officer.

As if that wasn’t enough, users who reluctantly accepted to pay Pantone didn’t even get a guaranteed fix. Designers were instructed to download Pantone Connect plug-in for Adobe– Deceptively listed as “Free” in the Adobe Exchange Store with information about a “Premium” subscription listed in the plugin description – but some have noticed that the plugin is not showing up or working in their Adobe applications.

Others who gained access to the plugin complained about a buggy user interface, with some calling it “unusable”. According to Adobe Exchange’s Pantone Connect page, the plugin was last updated in September 2019, which may explain the glitches and poor user interface.

Users took to the plugin page to express their frustration. Many pointed out that this was an act of greed on the part of Pantone and Adobe, who wanted to push more users who had already paid for the apps or bought the official Pantone color book.

“Disappointment is an understatement – we buy your books, your ink and now the digital library we depend on! Money consumers who play nice must be fired!” wrote one user on October 22. “This only benefits you, Adobe and Pantone! How far will you go? Some designers cannot afford Adobe app subscriptions. A lot of people are moving away from what you’ve created, so when will it stop?”

Another user was furious, saying he didn’t understand why he suddenly had to pay for features that were previously free.

“Tired of paying so much and extra for software that came with software or was free online. Design software is already expensive, now we have to pay another subscription? Service your customers better!” User wrote on Oct 19.

Users decided to bombard the plugin with one-star comments. At the time of release, 311 out of 386 reviews on Pantone Connect gave it 1 star, giving the plugin an average of 1.5 stars.

Notably, if Adobe and Pantone had communicated the change better, the furor might have been contained. adobe First announcement It removed Pantone color libraries from its apps in December 2021, saying the colors would be gone by March 2022. It didn’t happen. He then said that Pantone colors would be phased out by August 2022, which has not happened.

It’s no wonder that consumers stopped believing that Adobe and Pantone would actually go ahead with their plans, and that upset a lot of people.

Ashley Steele, Adobe’s senior vice president of marketing, strategy and global partnerships in digital media, told Gizmodo in an email Wednesday that the company announced in June that “Pantone has decided to change its business model.”

“To access the full range of Pantone color books, Pantone now requires customers to purchase a premium license through Pantone Connect and install a plugin with Adobe Exchange,” explained Still. “We are currently looking at ways to minimize the impact on our customers. Meanwhile, customers with a Creative Cloud subscription can access up to 14 massive coloring books.”

Meanwhile, in a statement emailed to Gizmodo, Pantone blamed Adobe for the dispute, calling it a “trusted partner.” Pantone reiterated that it agreed to include a curated set of Pantone color libraries in Adobe Creative Cloud, not just all of their colors.

“While we do not set the price, features or user experience for our partner solutions, we work closely with our partners to create the best possible customer experience. Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers can use Pantone Connect to access the entire color library system. ” “In line with our mission and values, Pantone strives to be a useful resource for Adobe Creative Cloud users. Pantone continues to work with Adobe as a trusted partner to further enhance the add-on experience within the Creative Cloud.”

you wills Is it ultimately wrong? Hard to say. However, there is no doubt that we can all agree on what they are fighting for: money.