Does Photoshop run on M1 Apple computers

[hanil7up]

Hi all

I am about to buy a new machine, and being an apple user, I am considering the new Apple's M1 chip offers. 

Did any of you run Photoshop on these machines? What are your impressions?

Thanks

[Derek Cross]

Have a look at this:

https://photoshopcafe.com/photoshop-new-apple-m1-macbook-pro-13/

[D Fosse]

A bit uninformed though. The tester is "shocked" that Photoshop is able to process a huge file with only 8 GB RAM on the machine. But that's how Photoshop works, regardless of what machine you put it on.

The fact is that Photoshop will process anything as long as you have scratch disk space. It will take a bit of time, but it won't crash, and it won't freeze. It'll just chew through it.

With today's ultra-fast NVMe drives, the amount of RAM isn't as critical as it used to be. Yes, RAM is still technically faster, but I doubt it's very noticeable in practice. The question is whether you are waiting for the machine, or the machine is waiting for you.

Cut down on disk space, however, and everything grinds to a halt. Even with piles of RAM.

[hanil7up]

Thanks D Fosse. Do you consider an external, 128 GB Intenso SSD, enough for a scrach disk?

[D Fosse]

Not nearly enough. For any serious work, 500GB is minimum.

The most efficient setup is a large-capacity SSD as system drive, like a 1TB NVMe (aka PCIe M.2). Put the operating system and all applications here. That should normally occupy about 100GB. Then your user account will expand over time, with all application settings and user data, perhaps another 50-100GB depending on application use.

That leaves the rest of your system drive for Photoshop scratch.

Everything else, all your images and assets, should ideally be on another drive(s). That's obviously a bit tricky on a laptop where you can't add extra drives internally, so this is an inherent laptop problem. You'll have to decide whether to use external drives (slower, less reliable), or use a part of your system drive (potentially compromising Photoshop performance).

What you should not do, is put scratch on external drives. It may work in an emergency, but it's a very inefficient solution.

[hanil7up]

Thank you, got it, 🙂

[hanil7up]

Thanks Derek. I sometimes follow Collin and appreciate your feedback