Photoshop beta released for Apple Silicon M1 Macs

As announced by Apple during its November 10 event, Adobe is planning to release its major Creative Cloud apps optimized for Apple Silicon M1 starting in early 2021. Most recently, Adobe released a limited beta version of Photoshop.

The beta release will allow owners of a Surface Pro X or Apple’s new M1-powered MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini to run Photoshop natively on their machines.

Photoshop beta Apple Silicon M1

Adobe releases first beta of Photoshop on Apple Silicon

In a blog post, Adobe said that Photoshop is running natively on Apple’s M1 processor. The beta release isn’t officially supported but is available to gather feedback from users:

“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 is important to note that the beta is not fully functioning at the moment and will get features over time, it will only install and work on Arm hardware meeting minimum system requirements and there is a long long list of missing features that users will have to miss out on in the meantime. Adobe also warns users that, “several features are running slower on M1 native devices.”

Apple Silicon M1

The features that are not yet included range from several filters and brushes, to certain video and file formats. There are also features that are included but so far have “limitations or bugs,” such as 3D functions and support for Lightroom Photos.

Here is a full list of features that are not present in this version of Photoshop:

  • 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

MacBook Pro 13-inch 2020

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About the Author

Asma is an editor at iThinkDifferent with a strong focus on social media, Apple news, streaming services, guides, mobile gaming, app reviews, and more. When not blogging, Asma loves to play with her cat, draw, and binge on Netflix shows.