Philip, what precipitated this situation -- installation of an update, or a crash (that may have corrupted Ps)?
“Ai Answers” from a search for “Photoshop 2026 will not open” at community.adobe.com:
Immediate verification
- Confirm whether Photoshop shows any splash screen or error before disappearing; if it briefly appears then crashes, proceed with the steps below.
Quick troubleshooting steps (try in order)
- Restart your computer and make sure Creative Cloud is closed before relaunching Photoshop.
- Reset Photoshop preferences: quit Photoshop, then delete or rename the Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings folder located in your user AppData (Windows) or ~/Library/Preferences (macOS); when you relaunch, new default preference files will be created.
- Launch while holding Alt+Ctrl+Shift (Windows) or Option+Command+Shift (macOS) immediately after starting Photoshop to prompt deletion of current settings.
Clean reinstall
- Uninstall Photoshop and use the Creative Cloud / Cleaner tool procedure to remove leftover traces; during reinstall, choose advanced options to not import previous settings and remove old versions, and reinstall Photoshop.
GPU / Camera Raw checks
- Update your GPU drivers (NVIDIA, AMD, or Intel) and your OS updates; GPU driver issues commonly cause crashes.
- Check Camera Raw: a broken Camera Raw or TempDisableGPU file can prevent file opening or cause crashes — quit the host app, inspect the CameraRaw GPU folder and delete TempDisableGPU files to allow GPU initialization to retry, then relaunch and collect logs if needed.
Preferences and performance toggles
- If Photoshop opens but crashes or returns to Home when opening files, try disabling GPU compositing or multithreaded compositing in Preferences > Performance, then restart Photoshop.
- Remove or temporarily rename third‑party Plugins and the Plugins folder to rule out plugin conflicts.
System‑level remediation (Windows-specific)
- If you suspect corrupted system runtime files (ucrtbase.dll or similar), ensure Windows is fully updated; consider running System File Checker and DISM to repair system components.
If file types fail (e.g., RAW)
- If JPEGs open but RAW files hang, the issue is likely Camera Raw — reinstall or update Camera Raw and verify Camera Raw logs and settings.
Note: If these documented steps do not resolve the crash after thorough attempts, the available documentation recommends performing a full cleaner-based uninstall and reinstall and checking GPU/Camera Raw components as described above.
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