looking for older Mac for photoshop

[Luis Ortega]

I still have my latest adobe cs software that I ran on my old Mac Pro that came on disk instead of subscription.
When I upgraded to a new Mac with the current os, it would not let me install my software and I went for the subscription option instead.
Now I am retiring and don't need to keep the latest adobe apps and paying for a subscription, so I was thinking of getting a older Mac mini that can run the os needed for the adobe cs software and use that when I need to use photoshop.
Everything else I can do on my current Mac and I tend to use FCP rather than premiere for video.
Is it possible to get an older mini and install an older Mac os and my adobe cs software?

 

[eyoungren]

I still have my latest adobe cs software that I ran on my old Mac Pro that came on disk instead of subscription.
When I upgraded to a new Mac with the current os, it would not let me install my software and I went for the subscription option instead.
Now I am retiring and don't need to keep the latest adobe apps and paying for a subscription, so I was thinking of getting a older Mac mini that can run the os needed for the adobe cs software and use that when I need to use photoshop.
Everything else I can do on my current Mac and I tend to use FCP rather than premiere for video.
Is it possible to get an older mini and install an older Mac os and my adobe cs software?

Well…a PowerMac G4/G5 running either Tiger or Leopard will run Adobe CS, CS2, CS3 and CS4.

An Intel Mac can also run (on Snow Leopard) those same apps plus Adobe CS5.

Later Macs will be able to run higher versions (CS6 and Adobe CC).

So, if by Photoshop CS you mean either from CS to CS6 then, yes an older Mac Mini will run it.

I have three 2006 Mac Minis that can only run Snow Leopard max and they all run CS3, CS4, and CS5. My 2006 Snow Leopard only MBP runs CS2 and CS5 as well as CS4.

PS. CS4 will run on Mojave. I have it on my MacPro for certain things. I believe CS4 breaks at Catalina though. Not sure how far up the OS ladder you could get CS.

 

[chrfr]

I still have my latest adobe cs software that I ran on my old Mac Pro that came on disk instead of subscription.
When I upgraded to a new Mac with the current os, it would not let me install my software and I went for the subscription option instead.
Now I am retiring and don't need to keep the latest adobe apps and paying for a subscription, so I was thinking of getting a older Mac mini that can run the os needed for the adobe cs software and use that when I need to use photoshop.
Everything else I can do on my current Mac and I tend to use FCP rather than premiere for video.
Is it possible to get an older mini and install an older Mac os and my adobe cs software?

Keep in mind that older versions of Creative Suite can no longer be activated. If yours is so old that it doesn't require online activation, then you're ok, but CS2, 3, and 4 are now no longer able to activate and as such can't be used in new installations anymore.
Edit: source here: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite.html

 

[MBAir2010]

Luis Ortega:​

I am using CS4 from DVD's on a MacBook Pro 2012 Mojave and MacBook Air 2010 El Capitan flawlessly.
last month I installed CS4 on the macbook air using El Capitan, boy Mojave I need to install trough that El Capitan migration assistant, but that worked! Mojave won't accept the serial number-install key.

Today I will put CS4 on a Mac mini 2012 I am resurrecting using Mountain Lion.

enjoy your retirement!

 

[eyoungren]

Keep in mind that older versions of Creative Suite can no longer be activated. If yours is so old that it doesn't require online activation, then you're ok, but CS2, 3, and 4 are now no longer able to activate and as such can't be used in new installations anymore.
Edit: source here: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite.html

If you are a legitimate CS2 customer (you actually purchased CS2), Adobe provides serials that will also activate the product. That's just CS2 though.

 

[Boyd01]

I used my old copy of Photoshop CS3 up through Sierra on my 2013 MacBook Air. There was some kind of legacy version of Java that had to be installed for it to work IIRC, I think that is still available but not sure. Anyway, it worked on Sierra but crashed periodically. When I upgraded to a 2018 Mini with Catalina I just gave up and got the Adobe Photography Plan which is about $10/month and have been pleased with that.

I suspect that Photoshop CS3 would still run on Mojave but never tried and it likely would be been even more crash-prone that it was on Sierra. Pretty sure my version of CS3 would work in a Sierra Virtual Machiine on my 2018 Mini, I am running a lot of other legacy software that way. But for me, it's just easier to pay the "Adobe tax" with the subscription and always have the latest version.

Anyway, when migrating my old version of Photoshop across multiple Macs and operating systems over the years, I don't recall ever having to re-activate it (although I could be mistaken). I always used Migration Assistant to setup new machines.

To directly answer the OP's question, the 2018 Mini will run Mojave which is (theoretically) possible to run CS3. The 2014 Mini goes back to Yosemite (?) but 2014 was a bad year. You might look for a quad-core 2012 i7 Mini, they are faster than the top-spec 2014 Mini's and can go all the way back to Mountain Lion which should work, or it could be upgraded to Sierra which I know will work, or possibly Mojave.

[edit]The other possibility would be a 2018 Mini with an old version of MacOS in a virtual machine. Like I said, this works very well for my old software but is not compatible with every app. But the 2018 Mini is still supported and this would let you run other current software and receive security updates.

 

[Hrududu]

I understood there were issues with CS4 after Sierra. For that reason, I keep a Sierra install on several Macs so I can use CS4. So you say you guys got Mojave running it by simply upgrading from CS4 already installed on an older OS? I need to try that, it would eliminate having to boot into Sierra and wasting a partition for that install.

 

[Boyd01]

So you say you guys got Mojave running it by simply upgrading from CS4 already installed on an older OS?

Not sure who you're including in "you guys", but I never upgraded beyond CS3 however I moved my copy across different Macs and operating systems using the standard MacOS Migration Assistant (as opposed to installing from the original disks). I never ran CS3 on anything higher than Sierra.

 

[Luis Ortega]

Keep in mind that older versions of Creative Suite can no longer be activated. If yours is so old that it doesn't require online activation, then you're ok, but CS2, 3, and 4 are now no longer able to activate and as such can't be used in new installations anymore.
Edit: source here: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite.html

As I recall, I have them all, so I should have the last one produced, CS6.

 

[Luis Ortega]

Luis Ortega:​

I am using CS4 from DVD's on a MacBook Pro 2012 Mojave and MacBook Air 2010 El Capitan flawlessly.
last month I installed CS4 on the macbook air using El Capitan, boy Mojave I need to install trough that El Capitan migration assistant, but that worked! Mojave won't accept the serial number-install key.

Today I will put CS4 on a Mac mini 2012 I am resurrecting using Mountain Lion.

enjoy your retirement!

Which os would be best to use for a CS6 version of the software?

 

[MBAir2010]

Which os would be best to use for a CS6 version of the software?

Today, My 2012 Mac mini ran CS4 on Mountain Lion perfectly until I installed Mojave- then it failed to open
this is after installing th Java from apple to run CS4 but I will try to figure this out tomorrow.
I'm having rebooting issues now.

CS6 worked on our iMacs one from 2009 and other 2012 in 2017,
they are both in Costa Rica doing the internets there, last I heard.

I guess the latest Mac with great specs is what I would aim for.
and
I will check this thread often to see if I can give you more CS info.

 

[eyoungren]

I understood there were issues with CS4 after Sierra. For that reason, I keep a Sierra install on several Macs so I can use CS4. So you say you guys got Mojave running it by simply upgrading from CS4 already installed on an older OS? I need to try that, it would eliminate having to boot into Sierra and wasting a partition for that install.

Photoshop CS4 works fine in High Sierra and Mojave. InDesign CS4 does not. ID CS4 will open files, but you cannot see the contents. I use it on these versions of OS simply to create CS4 docs that can be converted to QuarkXPress. No idea about Illustrator CS4 on High Sierra or Mojave.

 

[MBAir2010]

Photoshop CS4 works fine in High Sierra and Mojave. InDesign CS4 does not. ID CS4 will open files, but you cannot see the contents. I use it on these versions of OS simply to create CS4 docs that can be converted to QuarkXPress. No idea about Illustrator CS4 on High Sierra or Mojave.

Photoshop and Illustrator works great in Mojave,
BUT I could not install the DVD on a macbook Pro 2012,
so I used migration from an El Capitan Time Machine.

Mojave CS4 has starting issues on a Mac mini 2012 I will try to solve today.

 

[B S Magnet]

As I recall, I have them all, so I should have the last one produced, CS6.

Hopefully not to complicate further all the feedback you’ve received, I can attest CS6 runs fine on any 64-bit Intel Mac (basically, Core 2 Duo and up) running anything later than 10.6.7 and earlier than Catalina (so Mojave will work, but Catalina, which dropped 32-bit application support, will not). I use CS6 on Snow Leopard (10.6.8 is a minimum requirement), and I also use CS6 on High Sierra.

The original, key system requirements for CS6 were as follows:

• Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support
• Mac OS X v10.6.8 or v10.7
• 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended)

As far as I know, CS6 applications will not run in Catalina and up.

I can also attest what @eyoungren said about CS4 working partially in the final iterations of macOS capable of running 32-bit applications: InDesign CD4 has problems and will not work. I have used Illustrator CS4 on High Sierra before, but the opening and editing for most of my work on my High Sierra box has been handled with Illustrator CS6.

I have no experience with CS5 or CS5.5, and very little experience with CS3.

 

[chaosbunny]

I just tried the CS6 apps I still have installed on my 5,1 Mac Pro running Mojave 10.14.6 and everything seems to work ok. Later versions of Mac OS will not run CS6 because Apple decided to drop 32 bit support in 10.15 and therefore many older apps, including games that were 3-4 years old at the time, were abandoned. That's also why I keep my Mac Pro on Mojave.

I don't know it you can install CS6 on Mojave that easy though, since the install on my Mac Pro was migrated all the way up from Snow Leopard.

 

[Minghold]

CS6 on an i7 with a Fusion drive or SSD is smokin' fast. In fact too fast. --And that was apparently Apple's and Adobe's (and the rest of "evil BigTech"'s) assessment as well, because nobody had any real reason to upgrade their computer after 2013 or 2014. Solution? Artificial obsolescence. First, drop support for 32bit apps and convert the MacOS from HFS+ (which runs great on rotational drives) to APFS (which doesn't run fast on anything). This means that Mojave running 32bit apps from an HFS+ partition is pretty much the end-of-the-line for raw speed with Macs. CS6 Photoshop Extended launches in two seconds from a Fusion/SSD HFS+ partition, and I defy anyone to get any piece of Monterey/APFS-hosted 64bit software to launch that fast, even on an M2. (This also means that Mojave is the last version of the OS capable of running 64-bit apps fast from an HFS+ partition -- so it's not just about the 32-bits.)

When new Macs no longer support Mojave, it'll mark the end of the "Mac" as you once knew it.

~ ~ ~

Getting Mojave onto HFS+ is easy: just copy it into an HFS+ partition with Carbon Copy Cloner 5 or Get Backup Pro. (It's the last version of the MacOS in which you could easily make a full bootable backup.)

 

[eyoungren]

CS6 on an i7 with a Fusion drive or SSD is smokin' fast. In fact too fast. --And that was apparently Apple's and Adobe's (and the rest of "evil BigTech"'s) assessment as well, because nobody had any real reason to upgrade their computer after 2013 or 2014. Solution? Artificial obsolescence. First, drop support for 32bit apps and convert the MacOS from HFS+ (which runs great on rotational drives) to APFS (which doesn't run fast on anything). This means that Mojave running 32bit apps from an HFS+ partition is pretty much the end-of-the-line for raw speed with Macs. CS6 Photoshop Extended launches in two seconds from a Fusion/SSD HFS+ partition, and I defy anyone to get any piece of Monterey/APFS-hosted 64bit software to launch that fast, even on an M2. (This also means that Mojave is the last version of the OS capable of running 64-bit apps fast from an HFS+ partition -- so it's not just about the 32-bits.)

When new Macs no longer support Mojave, it'll mark the end of the "Mac" as you once knew it.

~ ~ ~

Getting Mojave onto HFS+ is easy: just copy it into an HFS+ partition with Carbon Copy Cloner 5 or Get Backup Pro. (It's the last version of the MacOS in which you could easily make a full bootable backup.)

Not quite certain what to do with this…

I have Adobe CC21 running on a MP 5,1 with 32GB ram and a 1TB SSD (APFS) boot drive. Mojave OS. No, it doesn't load in 2 seconds, but it loads fast enough for me.

On the other hand, I tend to have Photoshop and InDesign running all the time, so it's just a matter of switching or opening something. My Macs are all on 24/7, no sleep, so quitting open/running apps is not really my thing.

 

[theMarble]

Keep in mind that older versions of Creative Suite can no longer be activated. If yours is so old that it doesn't require online activation, then you're ok, but CS2, 3, and 4 are now no longer able to activate and as such can't be used in new installations anymore.

The copies from Macintosh Garden still activate perfectly fine.

The original disc copies won't, but a few years ago Adobe quietly released downloads that didn't use the old activation server.

 

[theMarble]

CS6 on an i7 with a Fusion drive or SSD is smokin' fast.

Why bother with a Fusion Drive? Compared to an SSD, they are slow and fail just as much as full mech drives.

Fusion drives may better than a normal HDD for boot up times and using apps, but when doing anything intensive it slows to a crawl.

Hybrid drives were good when high capacity SSD's cost over $500, these days you can get a 1TB SSD for under $100 dollars.

 

[chrfr]

The copies from Macintosh Garden still activate perfectly fine.

The original disc copies won't, but a few years ago Adobe quietly released downloads that didn't use the old activation server.

Adobe did that for CS2, but not the later versions. At least one copy of what's on Macintosh Garden is cracked, which may be why that activates.

 

[Minghold]

Why bother with a Fusion Drive?

You "bother" with it if that's what a used iMac came with. And the 2012 to 2014 top-end 27" models came with comparatively beefy-sized (for the era) 121gb SSDs, with many users decoupling the two fusion components.

Compared to an SSD, they are slow and fail just as much as full mech drives.

I've seen more than a few SSD failures in both Fusions and stand-alones, and, unlike an ailing rotational drive, they typically insta-brick from seemingly perfect health. (And, while not as severe on them as rotationals, the incessant pounding of APFS & Spotlight doesn't do them any favors either.)

Fusion drives may better than a normal HDD for boot up times and using apps, but when doing anything intensive it slows to a crawl.

Once upon a time, software developers had to write lean code so as to not pound the drive to pieces, and if your app didn't, then it sat there with a spinning wheel of everybody-knows-you-suck. As much as I like the speed of SSDs, I recognize that their presence represents a safety-net for sloppy coders of bloatware. (One of the "fastest" systems I have is an ancient white iMac with 1gb of ram. From a cold boot, I can launch Snow Leopard off a junk-quality 320gb external rotational drive over pokey USB2 and have the desktop ready about fifteen seconds after selecting it from the startup list.)

 

[eyoungren]

(One of the "fastest" systems I have is an ancient white iMac with 1gb of ram. From a cold boot, I can launch Snow Leopard off a junk-quality 320gb external rotational drive over pokey USB2 and have the desktop ready about fifteen seconds after selecting it from the startup list.)

This is impressive if your life depends upon getting the Mac up from a cold boot. It's also very impressive for bragging rights.

How it helps you actually do work I am much less certain of. If you're working a job where this is critical to your continued long-term employment, then you've got a lot of stress in your life. I'd even argue that you'd be better leaving the Mac on if speed to desktop is so important.

I have a zero second to desktop time simply because my Macs are left on 24/7. Click the mouse, or press the spacebar and I'm ready to go. That's a pretty hard time to beat. And as I mentioned earlier, my apps are already running as I don't close them.

 

[Minghold]

This is impressive if your life depends upon...

I always enjoy the internet conversationalist who cuts straight-to-the-chase absurdist hyperbole while evincing complete knowledge of my needs. Therefore, I hereby appoint you to take over all of my more onerous meatspace responsibilities, starting with this stack of bills.

 

[eyoungren]

I always enjoy the internet conversationalist who cuts straight-to-the-chase absurdist hyperbole while evincing complete knowledge of my needs. Therefore, I hereby appoint you to take over all of my more onerous meatspace responsibilities, starting with this stack of bills.

So, you come into the thread speaking of how fast Adobe CS6 is and then speaking conspiracy theories about contrived obsolescence by Apple. According to your first post no one had any reason to upgrade after 2013-2014.

So, who is is evincing complete knowledge about whose needs here?

My needs do not require the speed that you experience, nor do I use my computers in the way that you do. Yet the implication in your first post is that I should, that I shouldn't need anything beyond what you yourself are using.

Then your second post expounds on just how fast your white iMac is - presumably because you aren't using any bloated software code?

The overall implication here seems to be that if you're using APFS on an SSD and later versions of software then your SSD is going to get hammered by bloated code and the APFS system and eventually fail prematurely with no warning.

I've not had that experience. I use what I use and it works just fine.

So…maybe if I am assuming to have a complete knowledge of your needs, it is in direct response to your implications that I don't need/shouldn't use whatever it is that you say I don't/shouldn't.

 

[Minghold]

...and then speaking conspiracy theories about contrived obsolescence by Apple....

Those wacky French.