A number of photographers have written in this week, asking for details about how customers of Pixmantec’s RawShooter Premium (which Adobe acquired last summer) can get a free copy of Lightroom. Lightroom Product Mgr. Tom Hogarty posted a brief FAQ a few days ago that address these questions. For convenience I’ve reproduced it here:
Q: When will Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 be available for RawShooter Premium customers?
A: The Photoshop Lightroom offer email for RawShooter Premium customers will be distributed by February 23rd with instructions on how to obtain a free downloadable copy of Lightroom 1.0.Q: Can RawShooter Premium customers get started with Photoshop Lightroom before receiving the offer email?
A: Yes, please download the 30-day trial version of Lightroom. The offer email will provide instructions on how to obtain the serial number that will license the trial version of Lightroom.Q: Where can I find documentation for Photoshop Lightroom?
A: Tutorials and documentation for Photoshop Lightroom can be found in the Adobe Design Center.Q: Who do I contact if I don’t receive an offer email by February 23rd?
A: If you are an owner of RawShooter Premium (RawShooter Essential users do not qualify for this offer) and you do not receive an offer email by February 23rd please contact Adobe Customer Service in your region for further assistance.Q: How can I convert my RawShooter Premium settings to Lightroom or Photoshop Camera Raw compatible settings?
A: A free settings conversion tool will be posted on Adobe Labs on March 5th for use by RawShooter Premium customers.
Hope that helps,
J.
John, since no other attempts to contact Adobe have met with any success, I thought I would post this comment. Perhaps you can help. I am a registered owner of Raw Shooter Premium and have never received the email. I have been waiting a week for Customer Service to respond (their definition of one business day must be different than mine). What’s a frustrated customer to do?
Regards,
Steve Terrell
[Sorry for the delay, Steve. Let me see what I can find out. –J.]
I’m in the same boat: Customer support is processing my support case for a week now without a single response! This is really frustrating…
And how will I get a refund since I forgot their promise?
[Who forgot what promise?
And if you bought and paid for RawShooter, that’s the product you got, and it continues to work. Adobe isn’t under any obligation to provide something else for free. Rather, that’s a step the company is taking to provide RawShooter customers with a migration path. –J.]
Same thing here. No serial so far. The bigger company the bigger problem. Why not let the RSP customer log in to a page and write the RSP serial and generate a new Lightroom serial. No fuzz.
Same issue with me. Got the email, clicked the link, entered the email – no serial number. Reported to Adobe, waited a week for a response. Initially told to try the email again (it didn’t work). Now told they’ve ‘run out of serial numbers’ and are awaiting more before sending them out. My trial version runs out in 14 days.
Here’s the Q I’ve been Asking most Frequently: Will Adobe ever get around to creating a RawShooter conversion tool? It was in process, but hasn’t emerged. DO you guys care?
[Yes, we care. Let me see what I can find out. –J.]
Is the Rawshooter conversion tool already available?
So, is there an opportunity for a free upgrade to Lightroom from RSP? Never having received an email, I’ve had to deal with the comic madness called Adobe customer support.
I called once, and was told no upgrade. Talk to sales. Sales gladly tried to sell me a copy for $300–a bit more than free, eh.
I sent an email to customer service. The email back said (more or less) “thanks for contacting customer service. we cannot help you. please contact customer service for support.” Could it get any more Kafka-esque?
Undeterred, I called again. The person took down my RSP serial # and said someone would contact me.
No one contacted me, so I called again. The person never heard of RSP, Pixmantec, or a free upgrade. Again I gave my serial. He said it was too short, that Adobe serials were 17 characters. I explained it wasn’t an Adobe serial. That put us back to square one. I hung up. (Sorry, Nigel. You seemed like a nice guy, but Adobe left you utterly unprepared and has worn out my patience.)
Oh, did I mention the hold times? Geez Louise!
So, why am I doing this? There are a lot quicker ways to secure a free “upgrade” and there are alternatives to LR.
How to proceed?
[Sorry about the chaos. Let me see what I can find out. –J.]
Hi,
I have been using Lightroom one for a year or so now, and had Rawshooter premium before that. I like both. I upgraded to rawshooter to lightroom 1. Then a few months back looked at upgrading to lightroom 2. Thats when the problems with Adobe started. My problem:
1. I purchased “RawShooter premium 2006” in October 2005.
2. I upgraded (2007 I think) to Lightroom 1. I paid for this and did not get it as a free upgrade. I was not aware of it.
3. I found out a month or two ago whilst looking for reviews on Lightroom 2 that users of RawShooter premium should have been given
free upgrades to Lightroom 1.0.
I raised a web support ticket and got no where. I said I lived in the UK so they give me a USA number to ring. I spent 20mins on the phone, 10 of which was on hold, and I am no further forward. I update the query, which is in plain English and get the reply to ring the USA number as they do not understand the problem.
I am getting annoyed that I am being fobbed off by Adobe. The web support or customer services (phone) do not understand and do not want to know. I agree with others, Lightroom is a fantastic tool but I am fast loosing patience over this and will shortly swap to another product and recommend that to my clients, blog readers and students.