Adobe Updates Illustrator, InDesign, and Lightroom Classic to Run Natively on M1 Macs - MacRumors
Skip to Content

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

by

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.

Tags: Adobe, M1 Guide

Popular Stories

Apple Event Logo

Apple to Launch These 15+ New Products Later This Year

Friday March 27, 2026 2:03 pm PDT by
March has been an incredibly busy month for Apple, with the company unveiling more than 10 new products and accessories. We said hello to the MacBook Neo at the start of the month, and we bid farewell to the Mac Pro at the end of it. Nevertheless, there is still a lot more to come this year. Beyond the usual annual updates to iPhones and Apple Watches, Apple's all-new smart home hub is...
Read Full Article • 63 comments
iOS 26

iOS 26.4 Adds Two New Features to CarPlay

Tuesday March 24, 2026 1:55 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 was released today, and it includes a couple of new features for CarPlay: an Ambient Music widget and support for voice-based chatbot apps. To update your iPhone 11 or newer to iOS 26.4, open the Settings app and tap on General → Software Update. CarPlay will automatically offer the new features so long as the iPhone connected to your vehicle is running iOS 26.4 or later....
Read Full Article • 30 comments
Mac Pro Feature Teal

Apple Confirms Mac Pro Is Dead, No Future Models Planned

Thursday March 26, 2026 2:04 pm PDT by
Apple has discontinued the Mac Pro and has removed the machine from its website, reports 9to5Mac. Apple said it does not plan to design a new version of the Mac Pro, and no new model will be coming in the future. The Mac Pro was last updated in 2023, which was when Apple added an M2 Ultra Apple silicon chip, but the chassis has not been refreshed since 2019. Apple redesigned the Mac Pro to...
Read Full Article • 526 comments

Top Rated Comments

M
mystery hill
63 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)
M
MauiPa
63 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)
D
davidwes
63 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)
M
MiG007
63 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)
D
djphat2000
63 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)
JippaLippa Avatar
JippaLippa
63 months ago
When will they even start assembling a beta for After Effects?
Please Adobe...it's not like I don't pay for it.
With the outrageous fee I'd expect a bigger effort in developing M1 native apps.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments