Adobe released an optimized version of Lightroom in December that ran natively on the M1 Macs, and Windows on ARM machines too. Back then, Adobe also started beta testing M1-optimized builds of some of its more popular offerings such as Photoshop. Well, the product is finally ready for prime time. Adobe has released a new version of Photoshop that runs natively on the new MacBooks powered by the in-house M1 silicon.
Preset Syncing and Invite to Edit Cloud Documents tools are yet to be ported for M1 Macs
Following internal testing, Adobe claims ‘a wide range of features’ offer an average speed boost of 1.5X with the new and optimized version of Photoshop. The company even mentions in its blog post that some tasks are substantially faster compared to what you get on the Rosetta 2 emulated version or the x86-optimized build of the app. Specifically, tasks such as opening/closing files, applying filters, Content-Aware Fill, and subject selection will run noticeably faster on the M1 Macs.
However, there are a few Photoshop features that are yet to be optimized for taking full advantage of the M1 chip, and they will be released later this year. Notable features that are yet to be ported for the ARM-based M1 ecosystem are Preset Syncing and Invite to Edit Cloud Documents. Adobe advises users to revert back to the non-optimized version of Photoshop to use them with the Rosetta 2 emulation layer, in case those features are an integral part of their workflow.
Adobe Photoshop for iPad gets new tools too
Cloud Documents Version History
Additionally, Adobe has also added two notable features to the Photoshop app for iPad – Cloud Documents Version History and Offline Cloud Documents Editing. The first one allows users to revert back to versions of a document as old as 60 days. Users can also choose to save older versions, rename them or even put them on the bookmark list. The latter allows users to download their cloud-based documents and store them locally for offline editing.
Offline Cloud Documents Editing