Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Graphic Design, Snow Leopard
Photoshop CS3 and Snow Leopard. Yea or nea?
One of the dark spots hanging over the excitement over Snow Leopard is whether or not Photoshop CS3 will work.Adobe caused some real consternation when they announced earlier this week that CS3 would get no support (along with the rest of the older Creative Suite) and suggested people upgrade to CS4.
In an Adobe FAQ [PDF download link] it's stated: "Older versions of Adobe creative software were not included in our testing efforts. While older Adobe and Macromedia applications may install and run on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6), they were designed, tested,and released to the public several years before this new operating system became available. You may therefore experience a variety of installation, stability, and reliability issues for which there is no resolution."
Then there was some backtracking from John Nack, Adobe Photoshop product manager. "It turns out that the Photoshop team has tested Photoshop CS3 on Snow Leopard, and to the best of our knowledge, PS CS3 works fine on Snow Leopard."
Hmmm. So will it work? People have invested a fortune in Adobe products. Some users who have used CS3 says it runs OK with late beta releases of Snow Leopard, but others have said there are a lot of problems. I've heard both stories from people using it, and remember, Adobe isn't saying CS4 is perfect either.
If I were making my living with Photoshop or other parts of the Creative Suite and was running CS3, I think I'd wait until there are a lot of user reports. Yes, CS3 has been out for a long time, and yes, Adobe would love to have us update to CS4, but in my case there are some critical plug-ins I use that haven't yet been updated to work with CS4, and I'm probably not alone.
Here's a link to John Nack's blog where some customers are commenting none too happily about Adobe right now.
I expect this issue is going to get a lot of attention when people start upgrading to Snow Leopard. Stand by.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
marc said 1:08PM on 8-27-2009
this is all way overblown. see john nack's statement below:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/
next "crisis" please!
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sepirioth said 1:17PM on 8-27-2009
thanks for that link marc, you just changed my day from WTF?! to sweeet.
Doug Adams said 1:14PM on 8-27-2009
I seem to remember that I had to uninstall and re-install but PS CS3 has been working fine for me under the pre-releases. Why wouldn't it?
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juliadmoore said 2:10PM on 10-26-2009
I have had a huge problem with CS3 and Snow Leopard. A pop up window appears saying "Licensing for this product has stopped working. You cannot use this product at this time. You must repair the probem by uninstalling ad then reinstalling this product or contacting your IT administrator or Adobe customer support for help."
So I uninstall CS3 and reinstall - same problem - same window appears. Can you help?
Emo said 1:20PM on 8-27-2009
It works perfectly. No issues with latest claimed "GM" of Snow Leopard.
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Jeffrey Tranberry said 10:41AM on 8-28-2009
@Emo. Great to hear. I can't speak for every product team in the Creative Suite, but I can speak for Photoshop. The QA team on Photoshop has tested Photoshop CS3 on Snow Leopard. We've worked closely with Apple address the issues we did find. We're not aware of any big issues with the final release of Snow Leopard. Let us know if you encounter issues wrt Photoshop and Snow Leopard.
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Commandeur said 1:23PM on 8-27-2009
I'll be watching this story with great interest.
Adobe should have ported their apps to Carbon years ago and now their feet dragging is coming back to bite them and their customers.
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uncle walrus said 4:07PM on 8-27-2009
@Commandeur ["Adobe should have ported their apps to Carbon years ago and now their feet dragging is coming back to bite them and their customers."]
I think you mean that they should have ported to Cocoa...
Charles said 1:31PM on 8-27-2009
"Nack has now posted an update after investigating the CS3 situation in which he reveals that Adobe and Apple actually did do extensive testing of at least Photoshop CS3 on Snow Leopard and found that it is in fact compatible with the new operating system."
OK, let me get this straight: This guy's specific job title is "Principal Product Manager for Photoshop" and he didn't know, until yesterday, whether Photoshop (Adobe's flagship product) was compatible with a major OS upgrade which has been announced and in development for over a year now??
Give me a break.
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Josh said 1:38PM on 8-27-2009
One of my college professors has been running Snow Leopard for a few months now and all of his in class presentations using CS3 went on without a hitch.
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Nick said 1:38PM on 8-27-2009
Adobe's products are so over priced that I am still running CS (zero). I need the apps for work, but only on an occasional basis and what I have still works under 10.5 so I have seen no real reason to upgrade. If CS continues to work with 10.6 then I will stay with it. If it doesnt I will be looking for alternatives or hitting the torents. No way am I spending the money Adobe is asking for a new full version of CS4.
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kanebake said 1:47PM on 8-27-2009
Overpriced ?
They are a bargain. I been using them for 6 years now, 1 weeks work pays for a full version of what i need, 1 days work pays for an upgrade to subsequent versions.
I think they are in fact really cheap.
Josh said 3:22PM on 8-27-2009
If it's your job to use them, then the Adobe products are cheap. If you are a freelancer or just mess around in Photoshop for fun, it is a bit expensive. But for the demographic Adobe is aiming at with the CS line, the products are cheap.
Tom said 3:35PM on 8-27-2009
Considering all of the software that comes with the creative suites, I think that Adobe could be charging more for it. But they probably found a price where they are profitable and are selling it to their target market.
Nick said 4:38PM on 8-27-2009
I am a freelance product designer and spend 99% of my time in a $1800 3D CAD program that I am more than happy to pay for and support in everyway possible. Occasionally I use Photoshop to tweek images for my portfolio, and use Illustrator for doing product graphics. It would be generous to say that spend even 1% of my time in those apps, yet the upgrade price is close to 50% of the price of the app that I spend 99% of my time creating in. Not a good return on investment.
artifex said 5:23PM on 8-28-2009
So, Nick, why not stop using your (torrented?) old copy? Or is that 1% actually really important?
I don't care about the legal issues, as much as this: if you actually use the product you have a moral obligation to pay for it. Your excuses are simply excuses. If it's not worth it, then find a workaround. Try doing your work in Gimp or something.
Andre said 1:47PM on 8-27-2009
Nice of them to save this controversy until 2 days before release.
Just what do they do with all the money we give them?
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emil said 2:01PM on 8-27-2009
David Pogue reported problems with PS CS3 as well. This might be a deal-breaker for me, unfortunately ... or perhaps a reason to obtain CS4 through illegitimate means until CS5 comes out in October, at which point I'll be less unhappy at the thought of paying Adobe for a newer version of their software just so it can run well.
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Mordieu! said 2:22PM on 8-27-2009
since we are on the subject, does adobe golive 9.0 work with SL? I am still using it in tiger and have not converted to DW. Adobe says it works with Leopard, but no words yet for SL
thanks
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dTondro said 10:38PM on 8-28-2009
I think the bigger problem you might have is if your processor isn't an Intel chip then you can't upgrade to Snow Leopard anyhow... Snow Leopard ended support for the older IBM chips.