Adobe Photoshop for Apple Silicon is Now Available in Beta

[cmaier]

If it’s anything like iPad photoshop you can probably wait another year before installing.

Edited to add: As a paying subscriber to all CC apps, Adobe is possibly the laziest modern software development company in existence. I really wish more competition pops up so I can cancel my sub.

It’s not even that they are lazy. They go out of their way to make their lives difficult by not using the native functionality of the platform. So you get software that feels like “Adobe” instead of windows or Mac, has bad performance for even simple things like browsing a disk, and it takes them forever to react to new OS features because they can’t simply automatically inherit new functionality like every else since they insist on using their own control and functions for everything.

 

[cupcakes2000]

You must be extremely fortunate with what you make in an hour.

Weird comment.
It’s £50 per month for the entire suite. It’s not exactly hard to make £50 in an hour as a freelancer using these products. You must be extremely unfortunate NOT not achieve this in one month to spend on the tools of your trade.

 

[luvbug]

Wait.a.minute! Haven't you heard? It will take years for mainstream apps to port over to M1. /s/s/s

 

[badlydrawnboy]

I don't use Photoshop a lot, but I use Lightroom a ton. Fortunately for me, I mostly use it on my iMac Pro and iPad Pro, rather than my Macbook Pro (soon to be replaced by a M1 MBA). I much prefer having a stylus to edit, hence the iPad Pro with Apple Pencil and a Wacom tablet with my iMac Pro. I'll continue to use LR on those devices and I imagine that eventually Adobe will release a version that I can use on my M1 Macbook Air.

 

[satchmo]

Affinity suite is awesome and it doesn’t need us to subscribe monthly payment. The problem is almost all industries ask for AI and PSD and that won’t change anytime soon.

From the info on their website, apps like Designer save out to all the industry standard file formats i.e. PSD, AI etc.

However, I'd love to hear from Affinity users how well it works. Do these files retain important information in layers. Can you go in both direction (opening a PSD file) or can you only save out to PSD?

 

[Morgenland]

Grandfather loves Adobe.
Mismanagement, the loss of skilled programmers and Adobe's arrogance/customer distance (subscription) were the beginning of the decline of a formerly good software. In the medium term, money does not come into the cash register through clever customer exploitation, but through optimized software, where from version to version you notice how straight forward and pleasant the software is maintained.

Nowadays we love Affinity Suite and FCPX.

 

[wumpalumpa]

btw Adobe released version for Windows 10 ARM also

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/photoshop-beta/photoshop-beta-for-windows-arm-is-here/5fb3584b38150f55db64b1e4

which clearly means M1 is not that different to other ARM processors but just the same

those are good news

just hope to see Adobe in other OS also, not just MacOS and Windows 10

there is missing a third and/or forth big Operating System

1 could be a solid version of Android Desktop OS (ok maybe just for ARM PCs, would be good enough)

1 could be Sony Operating System (same OS their are using on PS5 with friendly user interface plus support for popular professional apps)


Linux still only for server purpose, research and/or stuff like that (what is good enough actually)

Popular professional apps still away from the penguin... (altough time to time something interesting shows around the ice) maybe this ARM scenario will change that

 

[vinegarshots]

Can't understand all the Adobe hate. They literally offer you all the software you need in exchange for what you make in one hour per month while using it. They could charge 5x that and it would still be cheap.

Quantity over quality. They have too many products, too few devs, and too little competition. Most of Adobe's big programs (like After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop) are built on code thats over two decades old. Adobe has just been trying to glue extra features onto this ancient code without fixing or optimizing it for modern hardware. After Effects (which I use heavily) is clunky and slow like molasses, and it's never gotten any better (arguably worse over time), regardless of how many promises Adobe has made to fix it. Most of the Adobe suite runs horribly on a high-DPI monitor (4k and up), because their interface is only really designed to work on a 1080p display. The list goes on and on.

 

[sfwalter]

btw Adobe released version for Windows 10 ARM also

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/photoshop-beta/photoshop-beta-for-windows-arm-is-here/5fb3584b38150f55db64b1e4

which clearly means M1 is not that different to other ARM processors but just the same

those are good news

just hope to see Adobe in other OS also, not just MacOS and Windows 10

there is missing a third and/or forth big Operating System

1 could be a solid version of Android Desktop OS (ok maybe just for ARM PCs, would be good enough)

1 could be Sony Operating System (same OS their are using on PS5 with friendly user interface plus support for popular professional apps)


Linux still only for server purpose, research and/or stuff like that (what is good enough actually)

Popular professional apps still away from the penguin... (altough time to time something interesting shows around the ice) maybe this ARM scenario will change that

I don't know how they can consider this beta. Have you seen the long list of featuers not in the beta including camera raw?

 

[aleni]

From the info on their website, apps like Designer save out to all the industry standard file formats i.e. PSD, AI etc.

However, I'd love to hear from Affinity users how well it works. Do these files retain important information in layers. Can you go in both direction (opening a PSD file) or can you only save out to PSD?

I’m not sure with smart objects etc. I think they will be messed up. But need someone that’s using affinity to confirm this.

 

[amartinez1660]

I’m excited about getting a desktop with an Apple Silicon chip inside but I use After Effects so, at this rate, I’ll be waiting years, especially if they’re not officially supporting Rosetta 🙄

I’m riding the same truck. Since going all Mac recently, I have made it an habit to give FCPX and Motion some risky test drives from time to time, I’m getting the hang of Final Cut more and more, slighty more comfortable with its paradigms and both are seriously ultra fast.
However, decade+ of After Effects, that’s hard to beat for my brain and Motion project wise is not up to par features wise...

Same with affinity Photo (already M1 I think?), I find myself still too slow to be called professional.

I just wish Adobe would get on board on a sort of codev program with Apple, spend 10%, heck, 1% of all the subscriptions being collected all these years for bloating and hampering performance with features nobody asked for and do a serious fix on at least their core apps: Lightroom, photoshop, illustrator, after effects and premiere.

There’s non-sense like in Photoshop, when doing “Save As” on the Mac, select PNG, select the file to be replaced with the new contents, click on the prompted “Replace” dialog that got triggered, go to where the file is... there’s a “- copy.png” file, it replaces nothing. Then go to the forums and see the issue being tracked since many years ago for such a simple functionality that has always worked but broke and was never fixed.

 

[amartinez1660]

This is unforgivable. They have had M1 Developer Machines available for months to fix this up for day one. Doesn't have to perform as well or native but having it crash has to be fixed asap. I want to get my kid an M1 MacBook Air and this is a deal breaker.

Give it to him with the pay once and have it forever Affinity suite couple of apps.

Guess we will have to start young the change

 

[amartinez1660]

I wanted to do a very simple "select, delete background and rotate" on a small image for a layer in an art piece I was working on. The software left so much to the imagination, and I just wanted to get it done, and Procreate could do it.

P.s. I have been using the desktop version of photoshop for over 18 years, so yes, I am the target market.

Procreate never ceases to amaze me, the quick menus they added? Top notch. Pinch sandwich a bunch of layers in the layers list between your index and thumb fingers merges them? Mindblown.

I’m still learning as I’m more technical and not “a drawer”... but procreate has definitely brought that barrier (and fears of fail) down.

Selection with the lasso/poly tool is amazing (it’s the same single took! Draw freely for free lassoing then tap where straight lines are needed).

May I ask, how did you select the background and delete the background? I have found the Automatic selection mode (that would be the equivalent of the magic wand I guess) leaves a bit to be desired, also when trying pixel art I haven’t found a way to select all pixels of a color (whether continuous or disjointed). I would appreciate any pointers on this.

But yes, procreate rocks, photoshop not so much on the iPad.

 

[amartinez1660]

Affinity Photo has replaced Photoshop for me, no regrets whatsoever. I have been trying to find a Lightroom Classic replacement for years, unsuccessfully. Capture One has been a big disappointment on the library management part, really weak. I recently crossed back from the Windows world where ACDSee is a credible alternative, but that is not the case on the Mac. Now I fear Lightroom Classic will take forever to work on AS. How can they code so badly that it won’t even run on Rosetta? I mean, Office 365 is fully supported on Rosetta !

Maybe we should start a request/suggestion/cry-of-despair to the Affinity Photo gang... people will pay, strike while it’s hot.

 

[amartinez1660]

..I recently made the switch to pixelmator pro (they have a new m1 version coming in a couple days) and so far I really like it. In fact its more intuitive than photoshop and for the main things I do (black/white transparency editing/printing for glass sandblast masking) its a more streamlined workflow. I am still learning its capabilities, but overall it can do everything ive needed from photoshop so far. Less clicks to complete the same tasks. (I love how I get multiple downvotes for sharing my experience with pixelmator. Adobe devs in here?

There are two of them, ruka.snow and chikorita, they are absolutely downvoting anybody that has found any alternative like Pixelmator Pro, Krita, Affinity Photo, Procreate, etc a good replacement to Photoshop. I don’t know why, pick your best and let others be free?
Me I can’t replace a png file, I have to delete it from finder and save it again because photoshop won’t replace it even after slamming the Replace prompt button. Issue is on adobe forums since some years ago.

After Effects is quite powerful and natural for me so I can’t really escape it and that one actually works (not “M1 works”, just that itself is a magnificent piece of software). Slow though, compared to Motion which leaves it on the dust.

 

[fpnc]

Here is what Adobe is saying about Photoshop compatibility with Rosetta on Apple's M1:

"Photoshop 22.x will run under Rosetta 2 emulation mode on Apple devices with Apple Silicon M1 processors."

Version 22.x includes Photoshop 2020 and 2021 (the latter the "current" version).

They also include a list of known issues under Rosetta which seems pretty short (stuff I think I've never used after over 20 years of using Photoshop).

So, in terms of the earlier user report (Photoshop crashes on startup, YMMV). However, Adobe does say that legacy versions of Photoshop are either untested or NOT compatible with the M1.

More here: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-and-macos-big-sur.html#emulation-known-issues

 

[GiantKiwi]

After Effects is quite powerful and natural for me so I can’t really escape it and that one actually works (not “M1 works”, just that itself is a magnificent piece of software). Slow though, compared to Motion which leaves it on the dust.

BMD's DaVinci Fusion. After Effects was basically the reason which made it so difficult for me to ditch Adobe CC altogether, but there are features within Fusion which I would have loved to have known about sooner (It uses Python and LUA for scripting, instead of a bastardised version of Javascript).

 

[AnthonyHarris]

Procreate never ceases to amaze me, the quick menus they added? Top notch. Pinch sandwich a bunch of layers in the layers list between your index and thumb fingers merges them? Mindblown.

I’m still learning as I’m more technical and not “a drawer”... but procreate has definitely brought that barrier (and fears of fail) down.

Selection with the lasso/poly tool is amazing (it’s the same single took! Draw freely for free lassoing then tap where straight lines are needed).

May I ask, how did you select the background and delete the background? I have found the Automatic selection mode (that would be the equivalent of the magic wand I guess) leaves a bit to be desired, also when trying pixel art I haven’t found a way to select all pixels of a color (whether continuous or disjointed). I would appreciate any pointers on this.

But yes, procreate rocks, photoshop not so much on the iPad.

The automatic selection is a little hit and miss, both in regular Photoshop and Procreate. More often then not, I will use it to get rid of most of the background and then tidy up the result with the eraser. The pencil makes the process so easy, and dare I say *fun*. It takes a little time, but the results are worth it.

Also, if you have a steady hand, you can use the freehand tool. Its quite forgiving, in that you can zoom right in and draw, and you can remove the pencil from the screen, recompose the image and carry on with your selection. That also is time consuming, but there will be less to tidy up afterwards.

 

[CalmCruiser]

Man! who will give us LR replacement software available in the Mac App Store. Only thing I need.

I feel the Adobe install is a collection of bloathware, leaving crap everywhere. I just hate it.

 

[GiantKiwi]

Man! who will give us LR replacement software available in the Mac App Store. Only thing I need.

I feel the Adobe install is a collection of bloathware, leaving crap everywhere. I just hate it.

Darkroom (ie the iPad app) is available as a Universal App. Must be pretty good, as it was featured in the launch announcement.