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Adobe Updates Illustrator, InDesign, and Lightroom Classic to Run Natively on M1 Macs

Adobe today announced the release of major updates across its Creative Cloud software suite. Most notably, its Illustrator, InDesign, and Lightroom Classic apps now run natively on Macs with the M1 chip, resulting in faster performance.

adobe m1 chip
Creative Cloud apps are on average over 80% faster on an M1 Mac compared to an identically configured Intel-based Mac, according to Adobe.

Additional notable new features and workflow improvements in today's releases, per Adobe:

  • Lightroom Ecosystem: New Premium Presets, collaborative editing capabilities, Super Resolution in Lightroom and Lightroom Classic (previously available in Adobe Camera Raw), and custom crop aspect ratios in Lightroom
  • Powerful new retouching features in Photoshop Express, including skin smoothing, content aware healing, face aware liquify and caricature
  • Custom brushes in Photoshop on iPad
  • Rotate View in Illustrator on desktop
  • New styling tools in Adobe XD: Inner Shadow, Outline Stroke, and Angular Gradient

Premiere Pro with native support for the M1 chip remains in beta, with a public release coming soon, according to Adobe.

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Top Rated Comments

62 months ago

Creative Cloud apps are on average over 80% faster ('https://www.pfeifferreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Creative_Cloud_on_Apple_Silicon_Benchmark_Report.pdf') on an M1 Mac compared to an identically configured Intel-based Mac, according to Adobe
RIP Intel.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
62 months ago

My testing of an After Effects (running through Rosetta of course) render on an M1 mini compared to iMac Retina 5k 27-inch Late 2015 does not show 80% improvement. More like 2%.

Admittedly I'm not a professional tester, but it was a real world test - no plugins.
Seriously? You think that is equivalent? You even stated Rosetta. so a low power M1 processor beats a full on desktop CPU while running an emulator, and you are not impressed? the article specifically said that "NATIVE", which are faster than emulated, BTW is 80% faster. so there you go
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
62 months ago

My testing of an After Effects (running through Rosetta of course) render on an M1 mini compared to iMac Retina 5k 27-inch Late 2015 does not show 80% improvement. More like 2%.

Admittedly I'm not a professional tester, but it was a real world test - no plugins.
Umm, the article is about the apps now being native and therefore being 80% faster. Of course rosetta would be slower.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
62 months ago
According to Adobe (Adobe M1 status ('https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2020/12/21/now-in-beta-premiere-pro-premiere-rush-audition-for-apple-m1-systems.html#gs.2ttjax')) a release version of Premiere Pro is supposed to be available first half of 2021 -- within 22 days?

And they will begin work on a native version of After Effects this year.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
62 months ago

My testing of an After Effects (running through Rosetta of course) render on an M1 mini compared to iMac Retina 5k 27-inch Late 2015 does not show 80% improvement. More like 2%.

Admittedly I'm not a professional tester, but it was a real world test - no plugins.
The new one should not be running under rosetta. So the fact that it was still 2% faster than an old 2015 iMac shows just how close emulation on M1 is to the real thing. You may see more like double the performance once you run the native version of the apps on your M1 system.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
otternonsense Avatar
62 months ago
There is no reason these apps can't be running just the same on M1 iPads –other than Apple's arbitrary reasons to drive a wedge between the two platforms.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)