Adobe is attempting to go in a fairly bold, new direction with Photoshop, as well as Adobe Creative Suite as a whole. At its Adobe MAX conference, the company just announced that Creative Suite would only be available as a monthly subscription service and that apps like Photoshop would no longer be available a la carte.

So what's the new paradigm? Adobe calls it Creative Cloud, and expects you to shell out $49.99/month for it. Depending on your particular situation, the monthly cost may or may not sound reasonable. After all, if you're used to paying upwards of $1,000 or even $2,000 for Adobe products, then $49.99/year ($600 total) is a great a value for the entirety of Creative Suite.

However, if you're used to simply torrenting Adobe Creative Suite and paying a grand total of $0 for it, the monthly subscription fee is probably laughable to you. It will be interesting to see how Adobe's anti-piracy effort plays out, but in the meantime, the company is carefully avoiding that part of the conversation — instead framing the Creative Suite redesign as a system to allow more timely content updates:     

"With the ability to quickly deliver new innovations, we're empowering photographers and creatives to push the boundaries in digital imaging and design," said Winston Hendrickson, vice president of products, Creative Media Solutions, Adobe. "Our customers will no longer have to wait 18 to 24 months to access new Photoshop innovation. When a new Photoshop feature is ready — whether it's the next Healing Brush or something as mind-blowing as Content Aware Fill — we'll deliver it via Creative Cloud."

You can check out the full text of Adobe's press release here.