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silent.creek
Known Participant
September 29, 2012
Question

Photoshop CS6 64bit vs. 32bit: What are the exact differences?

  • September 29, 2012
  • 1 reply
  • 71028 views

Hi,

during installation of Photoshop CS6 Extended, the setup routine offers to install both the 64bit and the 32bit edition of Photoshop.

I'd like to know the differences in terms of features or limitations between those two editions. I'm not talking about the benefits of 64bit software in general (e.g. utilize more than 4GB or RAM, or the faster execution of 64bit instructions, etc.), but actually missing features, etc.

I read that 64bit Photoshop does not offer TWAIN support. Ok, but what else is missing or different compared to the 32bit edition? I couldn't find any list.

Thanks,


Timo

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1 reply

Noel Carboni
Noel Carboni
Legend
September 29, 2012

silent.creek wrote:


What are the exact differences?

32 bits, exactly.

Seriously, 32 bit Photoshop provides you the ability to install and run older 32 bit only plug-ins.

You may find your display driver does some things better in 64 bit and others better in 32 bit.  It's rare to have that be the case, but I can think of one thing right now:  I can only see OpenCL capability in 64 bits.  This isn't really a "show stopper" issue, though, since Photoshop offers several backup plans (OpenGL, CPU execution).

I personally like the fact that they can be configured differently for most things and they remember their own configurations.  For me this affords me the opportunity to easily start the 32 bit version to work on astroimages and the 64 bit version to work on general photography.  In the former case, I open images through a 32 bit plug-in called FITS Liberator, and it's more important that while editing the document preview is composited with more accuracy, so I configure it for Cache Levels 1.  Speed is more important for my general photography, so I configure the 64 bit Photoshop for less display quality, more speed.

-Noel

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