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sergeg40241845
Participant
January 25, 2020
Answered

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6 and Catalina

  • January 25, 2020
  • 8 replies
  • 23686 views
Hello everyone, has anyone found a way to get Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 6 to work on the new version of Apple Catalina. Thank you
This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer JohanElzenga

Lightroom 6 works on Catalina if it was already installed and activated on your computer before you updated to Catalina. Lightroom 6 will not work on Catalina if you try to install it after that computer has been updated to Catalina, or if you try to install it on a new computer that is running Catalina. There is no fix or work around.

8 replies

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francescog2251760
Participant
September 29, 2020

I think it is ridiculous that Adobe forces people to pay twice for the same product. I hope they release a patch to work around the license authentication problem. In the meantime, I do agree with the rest of the community that feels conned.

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dj_paige
Legend
September 29, 2020

Certainly, the word "force" does not mean what you are implying.

 

Nevertheless, maybe some people feel conned but "the rest of the community" seems to love the Creative Cloud set of tools, and apparently see it as a great value. Over 18 million subscribers a year ago.

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Tlindstr
Participant
July 6, 2020

If I upgrade to Catalina and the installed Lightroom 6  not will work. Is there any possiblities to uninstall Catalina and go back to previous system and install Lightroom 6 again?

TheDigitalDog
TheDigitalDog
Inspiring
July 6, 2020

Can you be more specific? You were able to install LR6? Because the installer AFAIK is 32-bit and will not even install under Catalina. I have LR5 running fine under Catalina but it was installed long before I updated to that OS. So LR6 should run on Catalina too once installed in an older OS that supports the installer. 

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"
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tvproducersm
Participant
September 11, 2020

Its been along and frusrating relationship between Adobe and Apple users.   It still is.  Most of us are not computer or software specialsts especially relating to OS.  I came from the PC world in the mid 1990s to Apple and for a while enjoyed PhotoShop, Illustrator, and After Effects.  Later InDesign.  But this subscription based era or decade is increasingly more complicated.  Clouds as well.  Most of us just want to use a dependable software from machine to machine and keep track of our photo libraries.  Admittedly iPhoto in all its variatinos and Apreture were not good applications.  Adobe was but whatever the arguement of the chicken or the egg soured our relationships.  Going back to the PC world it not a good process either.  So this is a very frustrating catch-22.  Lightroom is an exceptioal product if set up correctly on whatever machine. But the reality is I'd like a software that runs on my computer to keep track of an extensive photography library and create catalogs of grouped searchable content.   I see it more as the VHS BETA wars of the mid 1970s.  Trade offs one way or the other.  Peter Krogh is why I got into Lightroom and built an extensive photogrpahy digitization studio.  The goal was to put family history libraries of photographs and documents onto hard drives that could be cloned over time unti there is a stable long term drive option.  And avoid clouds.  Privacy issues for one.  And to an extent the ongoing now lifetime monthly or annual fees.   Whether its Apple or Adobe I don't like eternal lifetime contracts to rent or lease software.  Its a great cash cow for developers and software companies but it does not fit the average consumer.   So unti there is an option otherwise I will contineue on with Apple and Adobe but cautious how and what is the relationship.  At some point I'll give up.  Its just not today.

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SJP36
Participant
June 30, 2020

Lightroom 6 was already installed and active on my computer before I update to Catalina. I can not import any photos. 

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dj_paige
Legend
June 30, 2020

Catalina has set some permissions that have to be changed in order for import to happen properly. As I am not a Mac person, I don't know the details, but searching this forum will yield the answer.

kjetilj5340681
kjetilj5340681
Participant
April 7, 2020

So I did find a workaround, it's not pretty but it works.

I was so lucky that I finally had the opertunity to upgrade my machine to a newer one. It came with Catalina and I restored my backup to it and started Lightroom. It worked, but only once. Next time it refused to start so I started using google finding responses that I had to upgrade my Lightroom to a subscription model. Since it started once after restore I was curious about why that was and ended up analyzing what changed after first application start. It turned out that after application starts it tries to execute the 32-bit autentication binaries and breaks the authentication files. Next time Lightroom starts it will fail.

My workaround was to restore the authentication file from backup and make a copy of them.

When I want to start Lightroom I copy the old autentication files over the broken ones and start Lightroom.

 

Restore these two files from backup :

/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/SLCache

/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/SLStore

    Najki
    Najki
    Participant
    May 2, 2020

    It was the same for me. I did restore a backup after launching my new MacBook Pro on Catalina. The first time, Lightroom started but failed on other attempts. I've tried restoring these two directories but now I get an error saying:

     

     

    Configuration error
Please uninstall and reinstall the product.

If this problem still occurs, please contact Adobe technical support for help, and mention the error code shown at the bottom of this screen.

Error: 16

http://www.adobe.com/support/

     

     

    So it didn't work for me on first try 😞 But I did search for hints on working around this "error 16" and found this topic. This helped and Lightroom launched again:

    sudo chmod -R 777 /Library/Application\ Support/Adobe
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    petero24472599
    Participant
    May 3, 2020
    I‘m still very annoyed about Adobe that they force private user to buy the online solution which cost a lot monthly. I was using Lr only to pimp up my pictures. In the meantime I sold it with my „old“ Mac.

    Kind regards Peter
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    petero24472599
    Participant
    March 19, 2020

    Hello together, I also bought and registred a Lightroom 6 Version at the end of 2017. Systemrequirements Intel Mehrkern Prozessor with 64-Bit-Support ??? It was still running on my older 21 iMac, because of producing private 4K movies I had to buy a 27iMac, newest generation,top equiped. But it's not possible to install LR6 because the Installation Manger is 32-Bit technology. I'm not a professional user and also the Apple guy who supported me when I changed the Mac's  didn't know about this problem. What can I do? I use this program very rare but I paid more than 200,- EUROs for it and it's not older than 27 months! I'm not able to change to a cloud abonnement

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    dj_paige
    Legend
    March 19, 2020

    What can you do? As far as I know, the only way to get Lightroom to install on Catalina is to upgrade (pay money) to the current version, which is Lightroom Classic 9.2 and requires an annual subscription (but you can choose to pay monthly 12 times or once a year).

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    petero24472599
    Participant
    March 19, 2020
    Thank you very much, but I’m not able to pay another money for subscription, therefore I use LR6 to rare.
    In my opinion ADOBE is a weak company because they knew years ago that APPLE will upgrade to 64 Bit technology and now they force people to buy a subscription.
    Kind regards Peter
      JohanElzenga
      Community Expert
      JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      January 27, 2020

      No, Lightroom 6 is not 32 bits. It's 64 bits. Only the component for license checking / activation is 32 bits. That's why it works if Lightroom 6 is already installed before you upgrade to Catalina. 

      -- Johan W. Elzenga
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      skwizard
      Participant
      January 27, 2020

      Serge, same happened with my mac too. The resolution I got was removing the application completely. It was mentioned to me that Lightroom 6 is 32 bit while Catalina is 64 bits operating system.

       

      Mantavya

      JohanElzenga
      Community Expert
      JohanElzengaCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      January 25, 2020

      Lightroom 6 works on Catalina if it was already installed and activated on your computer before you updated to Catalina. Lightroom 6 will not work on Catalina if you try to install it after that computer has been updated to Catalina, or if you try to install it on a new computer that is running Catalina. There is no fix or work around.

      -- Johan W. Elzenga
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