[HelloNurse]

Deliberately corrupting (or pretending to corrupt) the user's files is a whole new level of Adobeness.

Are they trying to shame Pantone, as some optimistic comments suggest, or happy to get a valued partner's help in their mission to evolve subscriptions to be more like ransomware?

[noirscape]

There's no file corruption, Adobe simply updated it's UI to not provide a rendering color to Pantones colors anymore so they default to black.

If you were to have another program that can open PSDs and provide rendering colors for Pantones colors, it'd work just fine. They're cutting a feature (one Adobe had been neglecting for over a decade), not corrupting any files.

For the people who weren't supposed to be using Pantone to begin with (digital only artists), yeah it's annoying. For those people a simple conversion of Pantone to RGB in their files should be enough though and older versions of Photoshop can do that if I understand it correctly (hence why Adobe is recommending older versions of Photoshop for people affected by this). Everyone else seems to not have been supposed to use the Adobe functionality anyway because it's extremely outdated.

[moolcool]

I'm sorry, but this is a very obtuse way to look at this problem. "Oh, the data is still there. You just don't have any way to read it". Like that's fantastic if you're a massive pedant, but if you actually want to use your files using with tools you used to create them, it's functionally identical to the file being corrupted. Doubly so if the application is some cloud bullshit that you can't keep old/functional versions of, despite paying out the nose for it. And the justification is just that the user wasn't supposed to use that feature in the first place? You have to be so gaslit by Adobe and dark patterns writ large to think this okay.

[noirscape]

Data corruption usually refers to actual data loss. The "data is still there but you just can't view it" isn't corruption, it just means your tools aren't up to the task.

You can still download older versions of Adobes apps, it's right there in the ARS article even (Creative Cloud lets you download older versions of PS, InDesign and the like), so your second argument about cloud bullshit doesn't go up there either.

As for the "not supposed to use" part; digital artists were never meant to use Pantone Spot colors to begin with. They're very specifically intended for graphic designers who are planning to have their works printed on different designs. That is what their colors are for.

I don't think Adobe handled (or communicated) this well at all, but this is de facto not data corruption.

[moolcool]

I'm sorry, but this is just mental gymnastics to justify dark patterns in modern software development and distribution. If I create a file on Photoshop on Monday, I should be able to open it on Friday. Period. Even if I used a feature I used "wasn't meant for me", as if that matters.

This is like pushing a firmware update to DVD players that makes certain disks unreadable. "Actually Grandma, your DVDs aren't corrupted. There's just a licensing dispute between Technicolor and the DVD standards consortium, making your existing tools no longer up to the task. The data is all still there on the discs!"

[cptskippy]

How should Adobe handle it?

Pantone support is a neglected feature that Adobe thinks most people should not be using.

* Do you pop up a UI saying "hey you're using it wrong, convert it" then run the risk that a user needs Pantone support and accidentally converts their files from Pantone and doesn't have a back up?

* Do you automatically convert their files and run the risk of getting sued when the user discovers the change?

* Do you automatically charge their Adobe account $10 and render the colors using Pantone?

* Do you eat the $10 for each user on the off chance they need Pantone?

* Do you eat the $10 only if a user ever opens a Pantone format file? The following week Pantone releases some asset free to everyone in Pantone format to boost their quarterly revenue?

They chose an option that makes it apparent to the user that there's a problem they need to resolve without embedding any controversy in their App or potentially harming user's file.

[moolcool]

They could simply not offer features which count on variable third party licensing terms.

[HelloNurse]

The affected pictures are barely recoverable, with inconvenient emergency procedures, risking permanent damage, if you are a power user armed with special software: exactly the same situation as, say, precious files in a FAT filesystem on an accidentally reformatted but not overwritten disk.

How can you say that Adobe deliberately making Photoshop stop working "means your tools aren't up to the task"? This is, frankly, victim-shaming.