Adobe's Photoshop and Premiere Elements only as a 3-year license

This week, Adobe introduced Photoshop Elements 2025 and Premiere Elements 2025. The two programs have always been slimmed-down versions of the large packages without the "Elements" suffix and, unlike these, could be used indefinitely in their current versions without a subscription model. This is now a thing of the past.

As Adobe itself states on the product pages, both when upgrading an older version of the Elements programs and when purchasing a new one, it is now only a "3-year license". For example, anyone who upgrades their previously unlimited Photoshop Elements 2024 to version 2025 for around 80 euros will be left without a functional image editor after three years. It doesn't help that, according to Adobe, the "Organizer", in which you can manage your images, will still be usable afterwards. The catalogs created will therefore apparently be retained.

Compared to Adobe's Creative Cloud subscription, however, both tools are still cheaper, but also limited in terms of functionality. This costs around 85 euros for the photo edition with the large Photoshop and Lightroom, even as a special offer. The three years of Photoshop Elements 2025 – without Lightroom – therefore cost around a third as an upgrade. If you don't need the professional functions of Premiere Pro for around 300 euros per year as a subscription, you can get away even cheaper with around 80 euros for the upgrade or 100 euros for three years of Premiere Elements 2025.

Elements also becomes a subscription for some

However, if you need to use the programs all the time, the new licensing model is ultimately also a subscription. Programs that only work for a fee after three years can hardly be described in any other way. The renowned photo and video website Petapixel also comes to this conclusion. Adobe has no longer offered unlimited licenses for the latest versions of the major editions since 2013. Sooner or later, photographers and filmmakers will be forced to switch to the subscription model – if they want to work with Adobe software, not only because of new functions, but also because of the ever-changing raw formats of cameras.

It seems that Adobe has now decided to take this step because the AI functions that both Premiere and Photoshop Elements 2025 offer are particularly appealing to many users. Among other things, both programs offer the removal of image elements, with the missing content being generated by AI. Other new features include artificial blurring, recoloring objects and a number of other functions that are also available ex works on current smartphones.

(nie)