This is a heads-up to people considering upgrading to OS X Mavericks. I did so and lost the use of Photoshop CS2. Many forums say it’s buggy all the way up to CS6. Trying to restart the program gives an error message 'Power-PC Applications no longer supported'.

Anyway, I won’t be doing any more panoramas or other photo editing for a while now. The new OS is otherwise very nice, and fixed a number of issues I had with the iMac, but losing Photoshop really hurts. So stay away from upgrading to Mavericks if you value Photoshop.

Hey Russ,

First.. very sorry to hear about your Mac OS and Photoshop trials and not so trivial tribulations.

In an effort to get you back up on your creative feet.. did some googlin'..

Came across this discussion on Apple Support Communities:

I upgraded to OS 10.8.5 and i have lost 4 major applications

Now, although the Mac OS referenced is that of 10.8.5 ... reading other similar discussions seems to bear out some possibilities for you (fingers crossed).

Such as, and I quote;

"Do you have the disks that came with your Mac? If so you can use them do do an erase and install of the original system and then reinstall your 3rd party apps from their source."

"You could create a partition on your boot drive or get an external HD to install the system you had previously in order to run those older application."

The above you might have already tried, or thought of.. if not.. again, fingers crossed for you.


If not an option to you.. in these discussions were mentions of alternative image editing programs. This one might fit the interim bill (till, say you obtained an updated and compatible (with Mavericks) Photoshop version):

Pixelmator 3.1 Marble

Free 30 day trial.

And to peruse the program features, click on "Learn about new features". I did.. and it does look impressive and quite comparable to Photoshop


Here is the link to the Mac App Store where you can read a bit more about it (check out the Customer Reviews section):

Pixelmator

Take note of the cost: $29.99.

That is very attractive, comparatively speaking.


I hope you find a remedy somewhere in all of this.. as it would be a shame for your work behind the lens (and otherwise) to be forced on hiatus. As you still remain one of my fav artists on the site here.

Wishing you all the best.

:o)


p.s. Thanks very much for the headsup.

I don't own a Mac in any form, but I've used plenty of them in the past...Ever since Apple discontinued the old Motorola PowerPC and G-Series CPUs that had always been designed exclusively for Macs, back in '06 (Biggest mistake they ever made, in my opinion) in favor of the Intel Core Duo, I-series, and Xeon processors that just about every computer manufacturer uses (the latter featured in their desktops)...things have gotten quite temperamental with their systems...Overpriced junk, nowadays!

As you mentioned, Apple discontinued support for PowerPC chips quite a while ago. What puzzles me is that I bought my current iMac in 2010 with an optional i7 chip. And I've been running Photoshop CS2 for 4 years on that machine with OS 10.6. Then, skipped a couple of updates, and now with 10.9 have lost all CS2 usability. It was the software change, not the hardware. That seems contrary to the PowerPC claim. And no, they're not overpriced junk...but real value for the money. It's been an absolute workhorse for me and although I've pushed it to its absolute limits, its never died on me. I've had renders that were using 100% of the i7 chip for 2-3 weeks, around the clock. The top of the machine would get as hot as a sidewalk in the noonday sun. It's kinda scary actually, but l've never had a shutdown or even a hiccup. I get flawless high performance and along with that, have never had a run-in with a virus, worm, trojan, whatever. Put it down to marketshare if you want, but the effect for the user is very positive.