Photoshop and InDesign are not getting along.

July 28, 2006 7:53 AM

I just installed the Creative Suite2 on my new Intel-based iMac. If I have InDesign open Photoshop will crash upon opening or crash InDesign and open Photoshop. The two will not run simultaneously. A fresh reinstall did not fix the problem.

This really irks me because the whole idea behind the Creative Suite is that these programs should work together seamlessly.

Any thoughts?

posted by spakto to computers & internet (24 comments total)

Can you post the crash logs or details here?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:07 AM on July 28, 2006

Not until this afternoon.
posted by spakto at 8:26 AM on July 28, 2006

How much RAM does your iMac have?
posted by lekvar at 8:44 AM on July 28, 2006

512MB. It's brand new.
posted by spakto at 8:58 AM on July 28, 2006

More RAM may help. Those two programs are memory hogs.
posted by BorgLove at 9:04 AM on July 28, 2006

They may be memory hogs, but they shouldn't crash even when running in low memory. UNIX's memory manager is somewhat more capable than that.

I don't have any suggestions for you other than to check with the Adobe Community Forums.
posted by kindall at 9:10 AM on July 28, 2006

Yeah, you definitely need more RAM. Preferably at least 1GB, and probably more if those two programs are mission-critical for you.

Crucial is a good place to buy RAM. It's more expensive than other places, but 100% compatibility is guaranteed.

On preview, check out Kindall's suggestions for now. But you still need more RAM. :)
posted by timetoevolve at 9:13 AM on July 28, 2006

Actually ...

It is a RAM problem, and could also be a space problem.

Intel-based is the problem you're having. Photoshop and InDesign haven't been released as Universal binaries capable of running on the Intel platform as of yet, because Adobe's a bile-spewing, oversized pig of a company that fouls anything it touches and couldn't release a stable product on time if it was a life or death situation.

Therefore, your Creative Suite products will RUN, but they need to run in Rosetta mode. Their code is being translated from it's PPC-compatible code to Intel-compatible code on the fly, which takes gobs and gobs of RAM and will slow you down seriously if you're working with huge files.

Sorry, there's no real good solution to this except to pack your new machine with RAM for now, and think rays of hate and death towards Adobe's headquarters.
posted by SpecialK at 9:14 AM on July 28, 2006

Sorry, there's no real good solution to this except to pack your new machine with RAM for now, and think rays of hate and death towards Adobe's headquarters.

I take it you've developed and maintained applications as large as the Creative Suite set, then? You totally sound like you could do it better.

Please read this:

http://blogs.adobe.com/scottbyer/2006/03/macintosh_and_t.html
posted by Mikey-San at 9:21 AM on July 28, 2006

I'm just going to drop in to plug DealRam ... and getting more memory for your Intel mac on general principles. I had 2 gigs of RAM waiting to install when my MacBook arrived, and the difference in speed from that upgrade was ridiculous.

I buy almost all of my RAM (and for others) from 8004memory.com, since it's all lifetime guaranteed and their RMAs are super-easy, even moreso than Crucial's. However, they give you a much better price if you go through Deal-Ram, which is kinda cheezy. My 1GB dimms were $85 on dealram, but were listed as over $100 when I navigated directly to their site. So go through dealram if you're going to buy from them.
posted by boaz at 10:01 AM on July 28, 2006

Mikey -

Nope, but I do know that when you've got two years of lead time for a development environment and a little more time before that to know that an intel switch is on Apple's roadmap, you generally start making organizational and development environment changes aimed towards an updated release of your flagship product in partnership with the release of the preferred platform for your target market.

It just kinda makes sense, ya know?
posted by SpecialK at 10:15 AM on July 28, 2006

Exactly SpecialK - thanks for the info.

So I just bought a $1300 computer for my personal Graphic Design business that won't run the most popular, industry standard software the way it was intended. Shit.

Sure looks nice, though!
posted by spakto at 10:25 AM on July 28, 2006

Unrelated to the question, and sorry for the derail, but is Mac still the preferred platform for graphic design? How many copies of Creative Suite CS2 have sold for Windows and how many have sold for OSX?
posted by MegoSteve at 10:26 AM on July 28, 2006

So I just bought a $1300 computer for my personal Graphic Design business that won't run the most popular, industry standard software the way it was intended. Shit.

I've been holding off on upgrading for this exact reason - Adobe has failed to pull its shit together. Very frustrating. In the meantime more RAM is probably the best you can do.
posted by BorgLove at 10:30 AM on July 28, 2006

I don't blame Adobe 100% on this. This reminds me of the OSX Classic mode fiasco. Apple knows people use their computers for graphics so why develop a new processor that has difficulty running industry standard software?

Not everyone can afford to upgrade their software every year and shouldn't have to.

So when is CS3 coming out?
posted by spakto at 10:53 AM on July 28, 2006

Again, you may need more RAM to run the Creative Suite apps at a reasonable speed -- but running them with less RAM shouldn't crash them. That's not how UNIX works. If you run low on memory, the machine just gets slower and slower as it swaps to disk more and more. Thus, I would not expect adding RAM to solve the crashing problem, though it is still a good idea for performance reasons.

As for Adobe, cut 'em a break. The decision not to ship a native version of CS2 seems reasonable enough given the issues involved.
posted by kindall at 11:32 AM on July 28, 2006

Note that even if you were running native versions, you really should have more than 512 MB of RAM. Mac OS X is designed to really take advantage of more RAM if you have it, and both InDesign and Photoshop are massive programs that require massive resources. I would not try to do any design with them on a Mac without at least 1.5 GB of RAM, and preferably more. This should not be expensive, but it will help a lot.
posted by raf at 11:46 AM on July 28, 2006

Not until this afternoon.

Please post crash logs, if you have the opportunity to do so.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:54 AM on July 28, 2006

Unrelated to the question, and sorry for the derail, but is Mac still the preferred platform for graphic design?

In the printing industry, yes, absolutely. I think this is less true in web design and development.

So I just bought a $1300 computer for my personal Graphic Design business that won't run the most popular, industry standard software the way it was intended. Shit.

Oh, it'll run. I'm running CS 1 on an Intel iMac with no problems other than the predictable slowness of an app runing in an emulator. As stated above, you just need more RAM. I've got 2 gb in mine, and I honestly wouldn't dream of having less, especially given what RAM hogs OS X and the Adobe apps are. There will probably be good news for us at the World Wide Developer's Conference.
posted by lekvar at 12:03 PM on July 28, 2006

CS3 is due to ship "Q2 2007." Which could mean as early as April or as late as June.
posted by kindall at 12:05 PM on July 28, 2006

Wow, that long? Color me surprised. Oh well, maybe there'll be an update or something, an optimizer like they released for the dual-processor G5s.
posted by lekvar at 12:31 PM on July 28, 2006

Okay, the crash log can be found here
posted by spakto at 3:27 PM on July 28, 2006

Nope, they are not updating CS2 to Intel. CS3 will be the first Intel-native Mac Creative Suite.

As for the timing, I'd sure like it to be sooner. Ideally you'd want CS3 to ship with the new pro desktop Macs which are hotly rumored to be imminent. Still, assuming Adobe ships CS3 in April, and assuming the Intel-based pro desktop Macs don't actually ship until October, and assuming you follow the rule of thumb not to buy a new Apple model until its first speed bump... CS3 will probably be out within a month or two of the date on which you would actually consider buying a Mac Pro. So, probably not deadly to Adobe or Apple.
posted by kindall at 3:42 PM on July 28, 2006

My impression from the crash logs is that there is a bug in the Rosetta translation engine, where these two Adobe PPC apps (which share a lot of code under the hood) are trying to access and manipulate the same cached translated code at the same time.

You might add more memory, but I don't really see how that would workaround this specific problem. Send a bug report in to Adobe, but don't expect them to help out until CS3. You can also report bugs to Apple (free ADC account required).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:43 PM on July 29, 2006