Content creators who've moved to using Apple's range of M1 Macs will be glad to know that an increasing number of natively-run photo and video editing apps are becoming available for the new Apple silicon.
Apple's new M1 processors have been the talk of the town since they debuted last year, and there's been a flurry of activity to optimize apps for the powerful chip. Following hot on the heels of natively-run Premiere Pro and Lightroom apps for M1 Macs, Adobe has announced (opens in new tab) the public release of its Photoshop app as well.
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According to Adobe, the M1-optimized Photoshop app is 1.5x times faster than the version running on Intel chips, and the difference will be noticeable from the get-go. On an M1 Mac, the new version of Photoshop will not only open quicker, but all other processes (even those that chew into processing power, like Content-Aware Fill and Select Subject) promise to be significantly faster as well.
That said, not all of Photoshop's latest features have been migrated over to the new chip, with Invite to Edit Cloud Documents and Preset Syncing currently absent. Adobe promises to have it all up and running soon, but in case those features are critical to your workflow, you do have the option to switch back to the Rosetta 2 version of the app in the interim.
Previously available only in beta, the new Apple silicon version of Photoshop is now being rolled out publicly to anyone using an M1 Mac, including the new MacBook Air (opens in new tab), 13-inch MacBook Pro (opens in new tab) and Mac mini (opens in new tab).
Adobe apps aren't the only creative options available natively for Apple silicon – Serif's Affinity Photo (opens in new tab) was updated in November 2020, followed soon after by the release of DxO 's PhotoLab 4.1 (opens in new tab) in December 2020.
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