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wolfenmedia
Participating Frequently
April 17, 2026

P: ACR 18.3 is unusable unless you disable GPU acceleration,

  • April 17, 2026
  • 25 replies
  • 1311 views

I have never had an issue with ACR before.18.3 freezing saying not responding saving files took twenty minutes instead of seconds everything was super laging, when I disabled the GPU acceleration it improved I see on the other pages I am not alone I'm using the most up to date windows, Nvidia drivers ETC: I have a 7950x, 5090, 64GB and NVME drives. Please fix as soon as possible or at least give a link to the previous version which I had no issues with.

Solution:

Update following the instructions in this link:

 

 

      25 replies

      Show previous replies
      Rikk Flohr_Photography
      Community Manager
      Rikk Flohr_PhotographyCommunity Manager
      April 20, 2026

      The Camera Raw team has made an updated version of the Camera Raw plugin available to address this issue. 
      The version in the Creative Cloud Desktop app will be the version you already have.

      To access the new version, please go to this link:

      for Mac
       http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/photoshop/cameraraw/mac/18.x/CameraRaw_18_3.dmg
      or for Win 64
      http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/photoshop/cameraraw/win/18.x/AdobeCameraRaw_x64_18_3.exe
      or for Win ARM
      http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/photoshop/cameraraw/win/18.x/AdobeCameraRaw_arm64_18_3.exe


      Verify the installed build changes to 18.3x2529

       

      Thank you for your patience. 
       

      Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
        M
        march411
        Known Participant
        April 20, 2026

        Any clue as to what they did to resolve the issue and it was fully tested in a day?

        W
        waldemarker
        Inspiring
        April 20, 2026

        replaced Bridge with 18.2, but still many issues (settings need seconds to be applied, no keyboard control, settings change only after mouse-click, no undo, preview not working). Would need to downgrade also camera Raw, not only Bridge. How to do that? There is no older version to download on adobe website.

          M
          march411
          Known Participant
          April 20, 2026

          Well I can’t fix 18.3 but I can help with a link to prior version from an Adobe affiliate. 

           Adobe RAW downloadable versions 

          Once you have it locally on your computer just run the executable file and it will overwrite 18.3. Restart you computer once the installation is complete.

            W
            waldemarker
            Inspiring
            April 20, 2026

            how to downgrade to camera raw 18.2? 18.3 is slow and full og bugs!

              M
              march411
              Known Participant
              April 19, 2026

              Just download 18.1.1 and run it locally, it will overwrite 18.3 and resolve your issues. I had to do it on my Windows system on 4.18.26 because the new version consistently threw errors and locked my machine. Up and Down has all the older versions.

              U
              uminnoun97924091
              Participating Frequently
              April 20, 2026

              how do you download previous versions?

                M
                march411
                Known Participant
                April 20, 2026

                Use this Adobe affiliate and the new version: Adobe RAW downloadable versions 

                Once you have it locally on your computer just run the executable file and it will overwrite 18.3. Restart you computer once the installation is complete.

                  U
                  uminnoun97924091
                  Participating Frequently
                  April 18, 2026

                  why do they have to break something whenever there is an update?????. 

                    W
                    wolfenmediaAuthor
                    Participating Frequently
                    April 19, 2026

                    They could at least make it easy to roll back to the previous version

                      rickburress
                      rickburress
                      Inspiring
                      April 18, 2026

                      I am also experiencing this issue with GPU on. Weoking on a Mac M3 Max with 128 GB of RAM, 

                        Chipset Model: Apple M3 Max

                        Type: GPU

                        Bus: Built-In

                        Total Number of Cores: 40

                        Vendor: Apple (0x106b)

                        Metal Support: Metal 4

                        Displays:

                      Color LCD:

                        Display Type: Built-in Liquid Retina XDR Display

                        Resolution: 3456 x 2234 Retina

                        Main Display: Yes

                        Mirror: Off

                        Online: Yes

                        Automatically Adjust Brightness: No

                        Connection Type: Internal

                        rickburress
                        rickburress
                        Inspiring
                        April 20, 2026

                        The patch to 18.3.0.2529 resolved the issue. Thank you!

                        tptobias
                        tptobias
                        Participant
                        April 17, 2026

                        First of all camera RAW 18.3 is significantly slower, can't really use it anymore.

                        Second it totally freezes if you first change ratio/crop photo and after that want to apply a preset.

                        Is there a way i can downgrade back to the previous version?

                        Oh and this webpage to a form for bug reports is uselss! Because there isnt a form to fill in. (https://www.adobe.com/nl/products/wishform.html#sa_src=web-messaging)

                         

                          peterb86513089
                          peterb86513089
                          Inspiring
                          April 18, 2026

                          I too had problems with ACR 18.3 and could not use it for my work. Unfortunately it is not possible to use the Creative Cloud application to install an older version of ACR. I contacted Adobe support (via the chat with an agent) and after a brief discussion they provide me a link to the ACR 18.0.0 installer. You should contact Adobe support if you need to install a prior version of ACR.

                          Peter

                            Rikk Flohr_Photography
                            Community Manager
                            Rikk Flohr_PhotographyCommunity Manager
                            April 17, 2026

                            I’ve consolidated the posts from the Announcement thread to this bug report and logged a ticket for the Camera Raw team to investigate. 

                            Thanks for making a separate report. 

                            It is definitely not the best to report suspected bugs on a product announcement and this is the better way to go. 

                             

                            Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org
                              W
                              wolfenmediaAuthor
                              Participating Frequently
                              April 17, 2026

                              Thanks 

                              W
                              wolfenmediaAuthor
                              Participating Frequently
                              April 17, 2026

                              I'm having the same issue as a lot of people here the previous version of ACR I had no Issues 18.3 is barely useable unless I turn off GPU Acceleration, I'm using a 7950X, 5090, 64GB memory and NVME drives.

                                peterb86513089
                                peterb86513089
                                Inspiring
                                April 17, 2026

                                Yes, I gave up. Unfortunately I could not find other versions of ACR from the Creative Cloud application. And the link I had saved for ACR plug-installer pointed to version 14, which seemed to me to be very old. So I contacted Adobe support (from within the Creative Cloud application) and chatted, first with a bot and then with an agent, who was able to provide me a link to ACR 18.0. I have now reverted to 18.0 and that has resolved my issues.

                                Peter

                                  peterb86513089
                                  peterb86513089
                                  Inspiring
                                  April 17, 2026

                                  I should add that I did not notice whether turning off the GPU accelerator made any difference. So for my case the overall thread title may not reflect my problem.

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