NO MONTHY FEE! If this ever happens... I'm out. Just on principle.
Just my extra 2¢.
I used to us Photoshop...since version 3, iirc (yeah, I'm old). Use PS and Adobe products up until they started to do the "CS stuff" and hinted at 'subscription'. I got out then. It wasn't easy...PS was THE program to use for what I did (worked at a print shop as a digital photo 'toucher-upper'; what is called "Photoshopping" nowadays).
Now though, and for years, I've been using Serif....now "Affinity" programs. Check them out if you want a Not-Photoshop-Photoshop program. Affinity Photo actually does a lot of stuff BETTER than Photoshop. Affinity Photo is really starting to be a thorn in Adobe's side from the looks of things. Affinity Photo ('photoshop'), Affinity Designer ('illustrator') and Affinity Publisher ('in-design').
Just FYI if you were looking for a single pay, own forever, PS-Alt. :)
Thanks. These days I use the free version of Artweaver (tho, it has a weird 17 seconds "initialization" pause when run), which substitutes PS 5 pretty well. I miss the .dss export plugin (intel or nvidia) tho, so I also have paint dot net, which is actually pretty good. And then there's Gimp and PhotoGimp. It's a miracle Adobe is still in business.