IMPORTANT NEWS FOR Apple Silicon (M1) USERS

Important news for users of Apple Silicon (M1) computers

**Edit February 2022: if you have the latest UXP version of the panel released February 10, 2022 via the Adobe Marketplace store, then what follows isn't applicable anymore if you have the latest Apple Silicon (M1) computer**

With the release of the Apple M1 computers (Silicon Mac), late 2020, Adobe had to adapt to the new Apple architecture. If you’re a PS CC user then this has the following consequences:

  • If you have the Apple M1 Silicon Mac (latest Apple Mini, Macbooks, and iMac not running on Intel processors) and PS CC 2021 (v22.3) or higher:

CEP extensions (plugins/panels like the B&W Artisan Pro and Quick Mask Pro panel, and other similar panels from other panel manufacturers that can be found and activated via PS > Window > Extensions (legacy)) will not be available anymore via that menu item. Only so-called UXP panels will be accessible as plugins in PS CC 22.3 and higher in combination with Apple M1

You can have access to those panels/plugins, by working under Rosetta emulation mode by going to Finder > Right-click the PS CC app there > select Get info > check Rosetta emulation. Then run PS again. You will find the first time of starting up PS will be slower but this will go back to normal in subsequent startups of PS CC.

  • If you have the Apple M1 Silicon Mac (latest Apple Mini, Macbooks, and iMac not running on Intel processors) and use PS CC 2020 or earlier (v21.2 and older):

All plugins can be accessed.

  • If you are on Apple machines with Intel processors and all Windows machines and PS CC 2022 or older (provided it's supported by Adobe):

All plugins can be accessed.

Note1: You can find the plugins in PS> Window > Extensions (legacy) in the latest PS versions. Until PS CC2020 it could be found under PS> Window > Extensions. So without the 'legacy'. The UXP panels, which our panels are not (yet) can now be found under (the new menu item) PS > Plugins.

Note2: the various caveats/known issues, listed on the Adobe site for working with specific versions of PS with Mac OS operating systems, regardless of the processor: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/ph ... g-sur.html


In short:

For Windows users, nothing changes with the latest versions of PS CC if you are a user of our panels or any other CEP panels/plugins from other developers.

For Apple users with Mac computers running on Intel processors, nothing changes with the latest versions of PS CC if you’re a user of our panels or any other CEP panels/plugins from other developers.

For Apple users with the latest Mac computers running on the recently released M1 processors and using PS CC 22.3: you can run under Rosetta emulation as described above to access the (CEP) panels or stay with earlier PS CC 22.x versions.

To make our panels future proof we will also work on UXP panels but this will take some time because there are still various incompatibilities between Adobe products and the functionality on Apple M1 machines compared to other machines. Furthermore, the UXP platform is not out-developed yet and not stable. This apart from the fact, it takes some time for us to develop it as our panels are fairly complex, using the latest PS features.

Some additional background info provided by Adobe

Update February 10th, 2022

Today we released the UXP version of the B&W Artisan Pro panel and that means that the Artisan Pro panel can now work on Apple computers with M1 processors without needing to start Photoshop in Rosetta emulation mode. More info on the new Artisan Pro X 2022 (UXP) here. With this necessary change, our panel will perform significantly better. Of course, also Windows users will benefit from this change to the UXP platform.

Update November 8th, 2021

Adobe's new UXP platform is continuously changing, unstable, and not out-developed yet. We've observed it’s causing many panel developers issues and unstable panels. So our new panel updates to comply with PS CC 2022 (v23.0.0.0 - that also introduced several issues) will not be on the UXP platform until it is finally stable and fully functional.

This means that if you are on an M1 computer, you will still have to run the panel in Rosetta emulation mode which works perfectly fine. On Windows or non-M1 Apple machines you can run it as usual.