Mac help needed

[curtisl]

I am trying to install photoshop 7 o to my mac with os x but half way through the install it errors with an unexpected error when installing carbon.lib. i have tried to install carbon.lib independently to ps7 but it says it is not supported outside of classic.

I am pretty clued up on windows but am new to mac's so any help is grateful.

thanks

[cyberface]

Photoshop 7 was the first OS X native version of Photoshop, came out when Jaguar was the system version. It's pretty old now, which raises some very important questions:

• what sort of Mac are you using?
• what version of OS X are you using?

The problem is that PS7 is a PPC binary, so if you've got a recent Mac with an Intel CPU, then Photoshop will be running in Rosetta emulation, which uses lots of memory and is slower. Also, the special optimised plugins mostly won't work (there were a fair few special Altivec-optimised plugins that took advantage of the awesome speed of the vector processing on the G4s and G5s).

I've also heard that PS7 simply doesn't run on Leopard, so if you've just bought a new Mac (which will be not just an Intel CPU, but also be pre-installed with Leopard) then you're wasting your time with PS7.

It should, however, work with earlier versions of OS X, and older Macs. If you're having trouble installing on a G4 Panther box then I'd advise checking things like the disk format, since some applications are very fussy about the filesystem chosen. Apple give you a choice when installing OS X (HFS, journalled or not, case sensitive or not, and Unix filesystem) but some important apps from Adobe and Microsoft only work on HFS+ case insensitive.

[curtisl]

i have a pretty new macbook but not on leopard. i am on version 10.5.1 with 2GHz intel core 2 duo with 1Gb ram. does that leave me ps7-less then?

[PJ S]

10.5 IS Leopard.
I suspect PS7 will not work on Leopard, and you'll need CS at the bare minimum, if not CS2.

[curtisl]

see that shows how much i know. there isn't ant leopard branding and i though with leopard you get that leopard wallpaper, i haven't got any of that but excuse my ignorance please, i am very new to this mac malarkey!!! thanks for you help tho guys!!

[cyberface]

Yup, 10.5.1 is Leopard. And that pretty much leaves you out of luck running PS7.

However, even if it did work, it'd be dog slow because not only would it be running in emulation, your Macbook is short on memory as well for doing emulation (Rosetta emulated apps can use nearly double the RAM).

Fortunately, Adobe accept PS7 ownership as a requirement for the much cheaper 'Upgrade' version of CS3. I've just checked Amazon UK and Photoshop CS3 Upgrade edition is £163 and accepts PS7 as your 'upgraded from' software. A full licence of Photoshop CS3 is £570.

Yes it's a pain to have to pay more - and you may be able to get a cut-price copy of CS2 now CS3's out... but consider this - CS3 is Adobe's first Universal product i.e. binaries for both PPC and Intel CPU Macs. As a result, upgrading to Photoshop CS3 will give you a Photoshop that runs natively on your Macbook and requires no emulation, using less memory and running much quicker (theoretically... depends whether 'new' features put in by Adobe have slowed the whole thing down again... )

I'd still slam in some more RAM for Photoshop work on a Macbook though. I picked up a 2 GB stick, Macbook spec, for less than £30 a few weeks ago. Got to be worth it.

[curtisl]

Cheers cyberface. I have been looking for RAM, is there any manufactors to steer clear of for Mac ram?

[jeevescat]

Not sure about who to stay clear of, but Crucial is usually the best bet.