NOTE: this is NOT about cheating and canceling CC, but keeping the software. It’s about reverting to your legal, legit paid-for copy of Photoshop CS6.

If you don’t do this, and merely cancel Creative Cloud, what you’ll likely get when you try to run your legal, legit paid-for copy of Photoshop CS6 is some kind of warning about the license no longer begin valid.(grrrr, Adobe, Grrrrr: I paid for it ! Why make me jump through all these hoops?… Oh. Wait. It’s about the MONEY isn’t it… grrrrr.)

Well…

I’ve just been thru all this: canceling Creative Cloud (CC) subscription and going back to my paid-for version of Photoshop CS6 (PSCS6.)

Reverting took hours. Maybe something here will help you shave off a few of them.

 I will NOT be responsible for you following these directions. All I’m saying here is that they worked for me. You are on your own.

You NEED to have your PSCS6 installer .dmg or DVD to do this

because

You ARE going to have to reinstall PSCS6 -from scratch- !

Not as easy as you’d hope, but about what you’d expect from Adobe.

Deactivate PSCS6 (Photoshop CS6). Ignore complaints.

(Backing up the PSCS6 folder would be a good idea now.)

Run the PSCS6 uninstaller. (This will leave your third-party plug-ins, fortunately.)

Rename this folder whatever; “aaaaa” works fine.

Now go to each of your CC product folders and run its uninstaller. There is no way to uninstall the whole CC suite at once. If there is no uninstaller, just drag the (name)CC folder to the trash.

The last item to uninstall this way is the CC folder itself.

Now look and see if your applications folder has any (name)CC folders left. If so, trash them.

Next, find anything installed along with (older) PSCS6, including the Adobe extension manager; Bridge; etc, and run their uninstallers and/or trash them.

Now, go to your root-level Library folder / application support / adobe, and find anything left over from CC and trash the whole thing.

Find any thing that looks like this (especially if it has a CC instead of CS6) and trash it:

Adobe PCD
caps
Uninstall
CameraRaw
CS6ServiceManager
PCF
CS6
Bridge CS6 Extensions
Color Profiles
SwitchBoard
OOBE
SLCache
SLStore
Adobe Photoshop CS6
Scripting Dictionaries CS6
Startup Scripts CS6
Extension Manager CS6
FontsRequired
FontsRecommended
Common
Keyfiles
backup
Plug-Ins
ssc
APE
AAMUpdaterInventory

 NOTE: Do this part with care, and remember that YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN HERE!!! 

I only have PSCS6 and Lightroom. If you have other legit copies of Adobe software, deleting something above might screw it all up. I don’t know. I will NOT be responsible for you following these directions. All I’m saying here is that they worked for me.

Next:  REBOOT YOUR COMPUTER.

At this point, if memory serves correctly, you can reinstall PSCS6 from your dmg file or DVD. (Be sure to have your serial number handy.)

If this install fails there’s something left over from CC that I probably forgot. (I’m doing the best I can here…) My experience was that the install of PSCS6 version 13.0.0 went OK. NOTE what I’m saying here: failure of Adobe updaters usually happens because you have something too recent. If it’s not too  recent, then basically, odds are it’s something you still have that the installer is choking on, not something wrong with the installer itself. Hunt for stuff the remove/trash, and try again.

Launch PSCS6 and choose updates from the help menu. (This failed a few times for me until I realized that my Adobe Extension Manager was too recent. If you deleted it as I suggested above, this should not be the issue.)

Hopefully, the updater will work, and you’ll end up with 13.0.5.

Quit PSCS6 and relaunch it and run the updater again. Lather, rinse, repeat until you’re up to date.

NOW you can grab your plug-ins from your “aaaaa” folder, and drag them back where they belong.

I hope this helps a bit.