The world of photography got some rough news from old school photo editor VSCO today.
Born on the desktop, it looks like VSCO is forgetting who brought them to the dance: The company announced it was discontinuing its Photoshop and Lightroom presets used for simulating film on RAW photos.
As PetaPixel points out, the presets are still for sale on the VSCO store but no one knows how long they will remain up there. We do know that VSCO presets will not be supported after March 1, 2019 per an announcement by the company.
Probably the biggest selling point behind the VSCO Film presets is how easy it made life for photographers that wanted to give their RAW images a certain kind of look. It seems like a lot of what is prompting VSCO’s move is the company’s transition from desktop to mobile – not much of a shocker given that that trend is dominating a lot of segments these days.
Internet reactions are mixed. Some photographers are pointing out that it will be an inconvenience to find replacements, but not impossible, while others highlight the shifting nature of the medium. It would seem that mobile – or Instagram – is more important to VSCO than professional photographers is one consensus, though that’s likely far from the case. A lot of the company’s efforts moving forward do seem to be situated in the mobile space. One program the company has pushed hard in recent weeks is its VSCO X mobile subscription service. There, you can obtain all of the VSCO presets for your mobile device for $USD 20 per year. Really, that's quite a steal – if you edit most of your photos on a mobile device. You can watch a video from VSCO about their future plans here on YouTube.
Is VSCO’s transition from desktop to mobile just a sign of the times? Do you use VSCO’s products? Let us know how these changes will impact your workflow in the comments.
1 Comment
I have vsco’s. But recently, I’ve spent more time with Nate’s https://natephotographic.com/.
I think it is because there are fewer choices and a bit easier to get at.