How to Run Adobe Photoshop 2024 on Wine (Linux)

Recently I downloaded a semi-legitimate copy of Photoshop CS3 (from 2007-ish). It made me realize how little the software has changed in the past nearly 20 years, aside from the terrible performance regression.

I'm by no means a Photoshop power user, but the stuff I use (the primary tools, the blending options menu, Image/Adjustments menu, Filters menu) are almost 1:1 feature-wise with the latest CC version.

I haven't tried to open .PSD files from a newer Photoshop, I don't know what the compatibility story is. I haven't ran it on my Linux box either, but I assume it will be easier to get it running than CC 2024.

If you want to avoid Adobe software, but are familiar with photoshop, Photopea [1] is a great choice.

It supports psd files (natively, without any export/import), has similar shortcuts, can import photoshop brushes and overall comes across as a well designed software. Their subreddit has a great helpful community too.

I am not a professional photo editor or graphic designer, but I have been using it a few times every week for last year or so and have yet to come across any bugs.

[1] photopea.com

Photoshop is the Sisyphus of software compatibility on Wine.

Can play the latest UE5 based game via Proton, still struggles with Photoshop. The funny state of Linux-Windows compatibility.

I get it, not undermining game development - it is a fine art but games are tight code bases that work on a lot of repetitive tasks. Utilities can be exceptionally broad in their scope. Also helps that coders who are gamers can be VERY dedicated to fixing the issues that hold them back from said games.

It is just neat that Photoshop is still this elusive thing that seems to also just be a foot away from working perfectly out of the box. I mean I have seen Wine run all manner of applications and home brew games without an issue.

When I had to convince my wife to leave windows for linux, the fact that photoshop was working perfectly fine on wine was a huge point. At that time (windows vista 64 era), I was using photoshop V6. It was launched directly from windows partition. All I needed was a "shortcut" file to launch it.

Its very simple: Start a windows VM with a few gigs of RAM, via virt-manager or similar, install photoshop, and that's it

Seems handy but I know if I try this some annoying missing dll or file error will pop up. Having said that I habe had success using Excel with playonlinux. As long as I dont open 2 spreadsheets and try to switch between them I'm ok.

I still run Dreamweaver 8 under Wine. It's paid for, and I'm entitled to move it to a new machine. Some of my old web sites are maintained with it. They load really fast.

Surprised nobody mentioned GIMP yet.

FYI, I have Macromedia Fireworks MX running perfectly under WINE on Fedora (I think the only tweak I did was to increase the font size to cope with modern HIDPI displays). Highly recommend it as a web-friendly image editor (it was what I used before Adobe killed off Macromedia).

Ugh, I wish we could put the adobe suite into the ground.

The company is hostile and scummy, and the tech is only slightly above alternatives in most cases.

It survives today on pure inertia, because everyone knows it. Which feels absurd to me- worst idea wins because it's the one everyone knows. And we'll keep using it so that the next generation only know that one thing.

Great for Adobe's profitability, awful for humanity.

Interesting! Acrobat (for preflighting) and Photoshop (for CMYK conversions) are the only reasons I still boot to Windows. Will have to try this out.

At this point, Windows's application binary interface is something of a common good, at the same level as roads and utilities. Shouldn't we have a piece of legislation that forces Microsoft to offer that binary interface in the same way as utilities sell power?

I love Linux, and I think that Linux desktop is fairly usable, but a bunch of software I rely on works much better on Windows.

I applaud this, but wonder how many people will really use this for production. People who buy photoshop probably use Windows or Mac and don’t want to risk an unstable process interfering with work you get paid to do, and people who just freewheel will probably not have an Adobe subscription.

I hope something like this gets figured out for the Affinity Suite. Since I game on a Steam Deck now, the only thing holding me back from having Linux do everything I need is those three programs. Yes I know Gimp, Inkscape, and Krita exist. I just think Affinity does it better.

wen office365 on wine

Running is one thing, running well is another.