Adobe Photoshop now supports Apple silicon, but only in beta form

By Oliver Haslam
published

MacBook Pro (late 2020) with Photoshop
MacBook Pro (late 2020) with Photoshop (Image credit: Apple)

What you need to know

  • Adobe has released a beta version of Photoshop that's designed to run on Apple silicon.
  • But not all features will be available straight away. It's beta, after all.

You can now download an Apple silicon build of Adobe Photoshop, so long as you don't mind being on the beta train. Adobe made the announcement overnight, but this version is probably one that you should skip.

Adobe is keen to point out that this initial beta build of Photoshop is solely for testing purposes – and it wants your feedback so it can get the Apple silicon update ready for everyone.

This early version of Photoshop for Apple Silicon offers many of the core Photoshop features that you've come to rely on for your day to day editing needs, and we'll be adding more features in the weeks to come. Note that Beta software is not officially supported yet by Adobe, but we want to hear from you, and this is the place to let us know how it's going.

It's also worth noting that there are tons of reasons not to install this version. Namely, a lot of features that aren't present in the current build.

How many features? A lot of them.

Features NOT PRESENT IN THIS VERSION:

  • Camera RAW
  • Select Sky/Sky Replacement
  • Refine Hair (in Select and Mask)
  • Liquify Filter: Face Aware features
  • OilPaint filter
  • Video timeline and file format support
  • All CEP-based Panels (CC Libraries panel, 3rd party extensions)
  • Adaptive Wide Angle
  • Shake Reduction
  • Face Detection underlying Color Range skin tones and Content Aware Move functions
  • Match Font/Font Similarity
  • Rich Tooltips, Coach marks for Discovery Panel tutorials
  • Microsoft Dial support
  • File Info Panel
  • Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode menu item disabled
  • Content Aware Fill
  • Content Aware Scale
  • Content Aware Move
  • Focus Area
  • Auto-Blend Layers
  • Photomerge
  • Spot Healing Brush
  • Patch Tool
  • Healing brush
  • Some File formats not supported

If that isn't enough to put you off, maybe the list of features that are supported, but are full of bugs, is enough. Either way, you can learn all about this Apple silicon beta of Adobe Photoshop over in the announcement post now.

But maybe just give this one a miss. OK?

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.

1 Comment
  • It is notable that M1 Macs just came out, and there is a Beta already. Clearly they have been working on it. By contrast, Windows on ARM has been out over a year, and they announced they were working on Photoshop then. Beta just came out. Similar reduced features.
    Wonder if you can run this Beta alongside a Rosetta massaged Intel version. I would love those who really use Photoshop to test this, but wouldn't want them hampered to do so.