Furious Pantone Designers Charge $15 for Colors at Adobe

A color book with multiple entries has been published.

Pantone only makes designers work in black if they don’t cough up $15 a month.
picture: Simon (stock struggle)

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

Designers who use Adobe Creative Suite tools, including Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, are infuriated by a licensing change that forces them to pay an additional $15 per month (or $90 per year) to Pantone to work in its signature colors in Adobe applications. in last weeksAdobe has removed support for Pantone’s proprietary color, which is the industry standard of choice, from its applications, leaving countless designers who have used Pantone colors with files. full of black Instead and the following message:

“This file contains Pantone colors that have been removed and replaced with black due to changes in the Pantone licensing with Adobe. To resolve the issue, click Learn More,” according to the message posted on Twitter and Confirmed as authentic By Adobe, which he blamed pantone feet.

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

As if that weren’t enough, users who grudgingly accepted to pay Pantone didn’t even get a guaranteed fix. Designers were directed to download the Pantone Connect plug-in for Adobe—Deceptively listed as “Free” on the Adobe Exchange Store with information about the “Premium” subscription listed in the plug-in description – but some have found that the plug-in did not appear in their Adobe applications or not work.

Others who gained access to the plugin complained of an inaccurate user interface, some even calling it “unusable”. According to the Pantone Connect page on Adobe Exchange, the plug-in was last updated in September of 2019, which may explain the glitches and poor user interface.

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

“Disappointment is an understatement – we buy your books, your ink and now the digital library we depend on! Money consumers who play well, someone should definitely be fired!” one user wrote on October 22. “It only benefits you Adobe and Pantone! How far will you go? Some designers can’t afford an Adobe app subscription as is. Many are migrating away from what you built, so when does it stop?”

Another user got angry and said they don’t understand why they suddenly had to pay for features that were previously free.

“Too hard, and tired of paying extra for features that were included with software or for free online. Design software is already expensive as it is, now we have to pay another subscription? Do better to serve your customers!” the user wrote on October 19.

Users also decided to bombard the plugin with one-star comments. As of publication, 311 of 386 reviews on Pantone Connect have given it 1 star, giving the plugin an average score of 1.5 stars.

Notably, the anger might have been contained if Adobe and Pantone had done a better job of communicating the change. Adobe first announced It was removing the Pantone color libraries from its applications in December 2021 and stated that the colors would be gone by March 2022. It did not. She then said that Pantone colors will be phased out by August 2022, which has not happened again.

It’s no surprise that customers stopped believing that Adobe and Pantone would actually go ahead with their plan and it would annoy a lot of people.

Ashley Steele, senior vice president of marketing, strategy and global partnerships in digital media at Adobe, told Gizmodo in an email Wednesday that the company shared 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 plug-in using Adobe Exchange,” explained Still. “We are currently looking at ways to reduce the impact on our customers. In the meantime, customers can also access up to 14 extensive color books with Creative Cloud subscriptions.”

Meanwhile, Pantone blamed Adobe for the controversy with Adobe in a statement emailed to Gizmodo, referring to it as 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 specify pricing, features, or user experience for our partner solutions, we work closely with our partners to create the best possible customer experience. Adobe Creative Cloud customers can take advantage of Pantone Connect to access the full 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 improve the add-on experience within Creative Cloud.”

Do yous Is it wrong in the end? hard to say. However, there is no doubt that we can all agree on what they are fighting for: money.

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