64-bit support and Photoshop CS4

[Martin_Doudoroff]

John Nack has posted an interesting blog entry about 64-bit support for Photoshop. In it he reveals a surprise: Adobe plans to release a 64-bit native version of Photoshop for Windows with CS4. He also reveals they intended to do the same on the Mac, but will not because Apple pulled the rug out from under them last Summer by canceling 64-bit support for the Carbon APIs. (There's a reasonable perspective on the Carbon-64 cancelation, here.)

For many members of this community, 64-bit support in Photoshop is a pretty big deal: while "journalists" tend to generalize abstractly about "the speed advantages" of 64-bit computing, in the context of photography and Photoshop, the biggest issue is memory. 32-bit Photoshop can only access up to around 2.5 to 3.5 GB of RAM—depending on the platform and what tricks are employed—before resorting to virtual memory. (By contrast, current high-end motherboards support as much as 32GB of RAM: 8x4GB, most of which Photoshop cannot use.)

Photoshop has its own, very mature, highly tuned virtual memory system that performs amazingly well, but it's still virtual memory: once the addressable RAM is exhausted, data is being constantly shuffled on and off disk. If you do much work with layers in Photoshop, it doesn't take long to exhaust the available RAM in 32-bit Photoshop. By contrast, 64-bit Photoshop should be able to address vastly more RAM (multiple terabytes, at least—far more than you will be able to practically install in a computer for years to come). For serious pixel editors, directly accessing all that RAM a big deal.

So, it appears 64-bit Windows users are in for a treat with Photoshop CS4. Mac users will probably have to wait until CS5, unless Adobe pushes out an interim release. (Note that probably no existing third-partly plugins will work at all in 64-bit Photoshop: they must be re-written and re-compiled.)

Adobe's Lightroom 2.0 (currently in public beta) already supports 64-bit computing on both Windows and Mac, and as far as I know, is the first Adobe product to do so.

[Jerry Skrocki]

Originally Posted by Martin_Doudoroff

Adobe's Lightroom 2.0 (currently in public beta) already supports 64-bit computing on both Windows and Mac, and as far as I know, is the first Adobe product to do so.

Lightroom 2.0 Beta installs by default as a 32 bit application. On Mac's running Leopard you have to option click on the icon, go to "get info" and uncheck the run in 32 bit box. When restarted, the Lightroom splash screen confirms that you are now running in 64 bit mode.

Without a Leopard native (CUPS) printer driver, you will not have access to your printer's dialog box. It will however print using your last saved printer settings.

[curtd]

Lightroom 2.0 is running good on my MacPro in 64 bit mode. I'm very unhappy that Apple/Adobe can't get me 64 bit Photoshop another way besides running CS4 under Windows on my Mac.

The usefulness of being able to run Windows on a Mac is bogus in my estimation. A fully stacked Windows setup can be had for next to nothing, so if you need Windows, buy one!

[Noel_Carboni]

Woohoo! It's about time!

For many members of this community, 64-bit support in Photoshop is a pretty big deal

I have been hoping for this for a long time... Most recently when I was putting some editing time into a half gigapixel Hubble mosaic that has 30+ layers. Accumulate a few history steps on something like that and the 32 bit limitation really raises its ugly head. I have 8 GB and to be fair it's really helpful when I run a LOT of stuff simultaneously - which I often do - but to be able to have PS address more than 3 GB of it directly... Mmmmmmmmmm. I'll probably have to buy more RAM though.

In my case I have very few 3rd party plugins, having preferred to develop my own tools as actions. And guess what? There really shouldn't be any problem with porting actions into the 64 bit realm! I'm stoked.

And even so... There is a good probability that while 64 bit operation will be a boon in the larger sense, individual images / data planes will still fit in a 32 bit realm. I see NO reason why Adobe can't create a plugin "wrapper" that will bridge that gap and allow existing 32 bit plugins to be supported on such images. If they DON'T do this they're not thinking hard enough.

The 64 bit Microsoft OSs run 32 bit apps seamlessly. It CAN be done.

We are headed to nothing but larger images with more complex digital machinations. 64 bit computing is precisely the answer. Bravo to Adobe for embracing the future.

Thanks for passing this bit of info along, Martin.

-Noel

P.S., I respectfully disagree, Curt. Creating and using a virtual machine is useful in SO many ways... Testing multiuser stuff, trying things that might damage a system, being able to run software incompatible with your host system... At the moment I have Vista running in a VMWare Virtual Machine (VM) on my MacBook, and both Linux and 32 bit XP running in VMs on my XP x64 system. And it's now possible that my next workstation can be a Mac Pro, giving me the ongoing ability to continue to run my favorite Windows stuff on a better workstation. More options is better!

[Paul_F_Caldwell]

Does anyone know if the 64 bit support will include XP 64 bit? or only Vista.

Thanks
Paul Caldwell

[Martin_Doudoroff]

Since I was stupid to not using a permalink to the appropriate entry on John Nack's blog in my initial post, above, here's the permalink. And here's the "official FAQ" on the topic.

Originally Posted by Paul_F_Caldwell

Does anyone know if the 64 bit support will include XP 64 bit? or only Vista.

I haven't found any official word on this. Rumors are that it works fine on XP 64, but don't count on it. Chances are that Photoshop CS4 is still over six months away, anyway.

[Noel_Carboni]

If they don't make it work on XP x64 they might as well not do it. I'm sorry to say Vista is more of a comparitive snail than 32 bit Photoshop CS3 on XP x64, and will offset most or all of the performance gains they hope to get with all that porting work.

Someday a computer will be invented that will run Vista well. Of course it would run XP even better, but that won't be an option.

-Noel