Who Does Photoshop Work

1. How Adobe Photoshop Works
2. Photoshop Projects For Students

October 2020 release (version 22.0) and later

Important! The Photoshop hardware requirements for Processor and Graphics card and have increased for version 22.0.
Ensure your system still meets the minimum requirements listed below. If you experience any issues, see Known issues in Photoshop.

Minimum and recommended system requirements for Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop Elements is best for both novices and serious photographers who want to easily edit images and/or look to acquire Photoshop-like skills. Starting with the Home Page's videos. Available for both Windows and Mac, Adobe Photoshop is an extremely powerful application that's used by many professional photographers and designers. You can use Photoshop for almost any type of image editing, from touching up photos to creating high-quality graphics.

† NOTICE TO USERS. Internet connection, Adobe ID, and acceptance of license agreement required to activate and use this product. This product may integrate with or allow access to certain Adobe or third-party hosted online services. Adobe services are available only to users 13 and older and require agreement to additional terms of use and Adobe's online privacy policy. Applications and Services may not be available in all countries or languages and may be subject to change or discontinuation without notice. Additional fees or membership charges may apply.

Photoshop is available in the following languages:

Dansk

Deutsch

English

Español

Français

Français*

Hebrew*

Hungarian

Italiano

Nederlands

Norwegian

Polish

Português (Brasil) Human making app.

Suomi

Svenska

Turkish

Ukrainian

čeština

Русский

عربي*

日本語

简体中文

繁體中文

한국어

* Arabic and Hebrew supported in a Middle Eastern version with full right-to-left language support, Arabic/Hebrew features, and an English interface; also in a North African French (Français*) version with full right-to-left language support, Arabic/Hebrew features, and a French interface.

The Adobe Camera Raw plug-in gives you ability to import and work with raw images, as well as JPEG and TIFF, in Photoshop.

Your computer may need to meet additional system requirements to work efficiently with Adobe Camera Raw.
See Adobe Camera Raw | System requirements for details.

See Considerations for Graphics Processor (GPU)-accelerated features.

How does Photoshop leverage the graphics processor?

Mountain lion 10 8 app installer. Photoshop leverages the graphics processor in your system to provide a seamlessly smooth Photoshop experience and increased performance with many features.

Features that require a GPU for acceleration

• Artboards
• Blur Gallery - OpenCL accelerated
• Camera Raw (more info)
  
• Image Size – Preserve Details
• Lens Blur (more info)
• Neural Filters
• Select Focus
• Select and Mask - OpenCL accelerated
• Smart Sharpen - OpenCL accelerated

Features that won't work without a GPU

If your graphics processor is unsupported or its driver is defective, the following Photoshop features won't work:

• 3D
• Birds Eye View
• Flick Panning
• Oil Paint
• Perspective Warp (more info)
• Render – Flame, Picture Frame, and Tree
• Scrubby Zoom
• Smooth Brush Resizing

If you encounter any issues working with the above features, see Graphics processor (GPU) troubleshooting.

What are the minimum graphics processor requirements?

• On Windows, a GPU with DirectX 12 support and 2 GB of GPU memory
  
• On macOS, a GPU with Metal Support and 2 GB of GPU memory

If your using an older graphics card or driver, GPU functionality in Photoshop may be limited or not supported.

Generally, consider using GPUs with an Average Ops/Sec of 2000 or higher on PassMark's GPU Computer Benchmark Chart.

How do I enable Photoshop to use the graphics processor?

Choose Edit > Preferences > Performance (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences > Performance (macOS).

In the Performance panel, make sure that Use Graphics Processor is selected in the Graphics Processor Settings section.


Click Advanced Settings and specify the following options:

Drawing Mode:

• Basic:Uses the least amount of graphics card memory or VRAM and enables basic graphics processor features
• Normal:Uses more graphics card memory or VRAM and enables graphics processor-based color matching, tone mapping, and checkerboard blending
• Advanced:Provides the benefits of Normal mode and newer graphics processor features that can result in improved performance

Use Graphics Processor to Accelerate Computation:Enable to improve the interactivity of Warp and Puppet Warp previews

Picsart photo studio. Use OpenCL: Enable to accelerate the new Blur Gallery filters, Smart Sharpen, Select Focus Area, or Image Size with Preserve Details selected (Note: OpenCL is available only on newer graphics cards that support OpenCL v1.1 or later.)

Anti-alias Guides and Paths:Allows the graphics processor to smooth the edges of drawn guides and paths

30-bit Display:Allows Photoshop to display 30 bit data directly on monitors with 30 bit support

Use native operating system GPU acceleration: Enables Photoshop to use macOS Metal and Windows DirectX 12

English

Español

Français

Français*

Hebrew*

Hungarian

Italiano

Nederlands

Norwegian

Polish

Português (Brasil) Human making app.

Suomi

Svenska

Turkish

Ukrainian

čeština

Русский

عربي*

日本語

简体中文

繁體中文

한국어

* Arabic and Hebrew supported in a Middle Eastern version with full right-to-left language support, Arabic/Hebrew features, and an English interface; also in a North African French (Français*) version with full right-to-left language support, Arabic/Hebrew features, and a French interface.

The Adobe Camera Raw plug-in gives you ability to import and work with raw images, as well as JPEG and TIFF, in Photoshop.

Your computer may need to meet additional system requirements to work efficiently with Adobe Camera Raw.
See Adobe Camera Raw | System requirements for details.

See Considerations for Graphics Processor (GPU)-accelerated features.

How does Photoshop leverage the graphics processor?

Mountain lion 10 8 app installer. Photoshop leverages the graphics processor in your system to provide a seamlessly smooth Photoshop experience and increased performance with many features.

Features that require a GPU for acceleration

• Artboards
• Blur Gallery - OpenCL accelerated
• Camera Raw (more info)
  
• Image Size – Preserve Details
• Lens Blur (more info)
• Neural Filters
• Select Focus
• Select and Mask - OpenCL accelerated
• Smart Sharpen - OpenCL accelerated

Features that won't work without a GPU

If your graphics processor is unsupported or its driver is defective, the following Photoshop features won't work:

• 3D
• Birds Eye View
• Flick Panning
• Oil Paint
• Perspective Warp (more info)
• Render – Flame, Picture Frame, and Tree
• Scrubby Zoom
• Smooth Brush Resizing

If you encounter any issues working with the above features, see Graphics processor (GPU) troubleshooting.

What are the minimum graphics processor requirements?

• On Windows, a GPU with DirectX 12 support and 2 GB of GPU memory
  
• On macOS, a GPU with Metal Support and 2 GB of GPU memory

If your using an older graphics card or driver, GPU functionality in Photoshop may be limited or not supported.

Generally, consider using GPUs with an Average Ops/Sec of 2000 or higher on PassMark's GPU Computer Benchmark Chart.

How do I enable Photoshop to use the graphics processor?

Choose Edit > Preferences > Performance (Windows) or Photoshop > Preferences > Performance (macOS).

In the Performance panel, make sure that Use Graphics Processor is selected in the Graphics Processor Settings section.


Click Advanced Settings and specify the following options:

Drawing Mode:

• Basic:Uses the least amount of graphics card memory or VRAM and enables basic graphics processor features
• Normal:Uses more graphics card memory or VRAM and enables graphics processor-based color matching, tone mapping, and checkerboard blending
• Advanced:Provides the benefits of Normal mode and newer graphics processor features that can result in improved performance

Use Graphics Processor to Accelerate Computation:Enable to improve the interactivity of Warp and Puppet Warp previews

Picsart photo studio. Use OpenCL: Enable to accelerate the new Blur Gallery filters, Smart Sharpen, Select Focus Area, or Image Size with Preserve Details selected (Note: OpenCL is available only on newer graphics cards that support OpenCL v1.1 or later.)

Anti-alias Guides and Paths:Allows the graphics processor to smooth the edges of drawn guides and paths

30-bit Display:Allows Photoshop to display 30 bit data directly on monitors with 30 bit support

Use native operating system GPU acceleration: Enables Photoshop to use macOS Metal and Windows DirectX 12

Does Photoshop take advantage of more than one graphics processor or graphics card?

Photoshop does not take advantage of multiple graphics cards. Conflicting drivers may also cause crashes or other problems.

How Adobe Photoshop Works

• If you have a system with multiple graphics cards, see Configuring computers with multiple graphics cards.
• If you have multiple monitors, a best practice is to connect them to the same graphics card.

Can I use Photoshop's graphics processor features on a virtual machine?

Photoshop Projects For Students

Running Photoshop under virtual machines, or VMs, is not tested extensively nor officially supported because of known issues with features that rely on the graphics processor in VM environments.