Does Photoshop work on Windows 8?

[Enfeoffor]

Does anyone have information on how Photoshop works in Windows 8?

Message title was edited by: Brett N

[Jeff Arola · Accepted solution]

I'm using photoshop cs6 on windows 8 x64 and it seems to work fine.

I've been using photoshop cs6 on various versions of windows 8 since the public beta of photoshop cs6.

[Noel Carboni]

I also can say it works quite well in Windows 8.  I'm running it in a virtual machine, and it's actually possible (with VMware workstation 8) to get GPU acceleration.

Whether Photoshop runs well in Windows 8, you should evaluate Windows 8 carefully before you decide to upgrade.  There's a LOT that's different from what you are used to, and in many ways the functionality has been reduced, since Microsoft is targeting the new version to run on small computers (tablets).  That said, it's quite a bit more efficient, with fast bootup times and fewer processes running all the time.  It could breathe new life into an older system.

-Noel

[Guest]

Does 32-bit Photoshop run on 64-bit Windows 8?  How about older releases of PhotoShop.

Chuck

[Noel Carboni]

Yes to the first question - Windows 8 is really a lot like a Windows 7.1 release; it runs everything Windows 7 did.

I haven't personally tried installing older versions of Photoshop on Windows 8, but again the initial appearances are that it should run everything Windows 7 did.

-Noel

[masonbarge]

Windows 8 upgrade messed up my Photoshop CS6 (Creative Suite CS) fairly badly.  It is usable but the display is totally messed up.

Using a number of tools (crop, text editing) the image randomly becomes completely black.  The color saturation show in Photoshop is lower than the image output to print or web.

[Noel Carboni]

You should never upgrade an operating system in place.  You'll inherit all the problems you may have accumlated with the older system, and surely there are things that you have now that are incompatible.  You should ALWAYS take the time to install the OS afresh, then install all your applications.  Always.

Once you've done that, it's possible you'll find that device drivers still aren't completely ready for your particular combination of hardware.

-Noel

[Guest]

I strongly disagree with Noel.  My desktop machine at work started life as Windows NT, then Win2K, then WinXP.  It went through at least four HW upgrades, but still the same OS and did not reinstall the OS.  I finally did have to reinstall the OS earlier this year because the hard drive crashed.

A complete reinstall means at least 40 hours of work migrating stuff.

An upgrade in place means you do need to double check that you have all the latest drivers, but otherwise, no problem.

[Noel Carboni]

Is the experience you're basing your statements on only up through WinXP, Chuck?

-Noel

[Guest]

No.  I've also upgraded my personal laptop from Vista to Win 7, no real problems (I did have to scare up the trick to make my Nikon LS4000 scanner work on Win 7.

Chuck

[Noel Carboni]

You've been lucky.

-Noel

[Henry_M__Allen]

I am seeing a lot of blinking and black screens when I copy, paste, or layer

Henry

[masonbarge]

Henry,

Go to Preferences and turn off graphics acceleration. That solved my

problem.