Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend: Adobe Photoshop CS3

Of all the software programs that I use daily on my MacBook Pro, Adobe Photoshop CS3 ranks near the top of the list. Consequently, the prospect of finding an alternative image editing program concerns me greatly.

Adobe Shut Down Its Reactivation Servers

My laptop recently suffered a kernel panic and rebooted on its own after I attempted to open a screenshot using Adobe Photoshop CS3. After logging back into my admin account and relaunching Photoshop, I was greeted by a new screen message saying that I needed to reactivate the software that I had been using for 15 consecutive years.

Investigating the source of the problem, I learned that Adobe finally pulled the plug on me after warning users back in 2020 that the tech firm was shutting down the activation servers for unsupported programs like Photoshop CS3. Upon reboot, I was informed that I could use my copy of Photoshop for another 5 days. After that, the software would no longer work on my machine, and I would not be able to reactivate the program because Adobe’s activation servers were no longer operational.

I have come to depend on Photoshop for completing everyday tasks by taking advantage of customized settings and workflow habits that I had developed over the years. Most of those tasks fall into these categories:

• color-correcting, restoring, and resizing scanned photos
• creating photo collages and adding special effects to images
• creating and cropping graphics for web, print, and video
• automating and applying the same procedures to different images

My Options

• Upgrade my Mac hardware and software. My MacBook Pro 2012 is too old to run either macOS 11 or 12 which are required to run the current generation of Adobe Photoshop programs, including Photoshop Elements 2022 or 2023.

• Run my vintage copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements version 2 in a Windows virtual machine or emulator like CrossOver for Mac. Although this option would allow me to remain within the Photoshop framework on my current macOS 10.12 system, this very early version of Photoshop Elements lacks so many of the advanced features of Photoshop CS3 (such as Curves, Smart Objects, and Batch Automate) that I’ve come to rely upon that would make it impractical for me to use over the long term.

• Install and learn a non-Adobe image editing program such as GIMP which is available for both macOS and Linux.

I am unwilling to bite the bullet and buy new Apple hardware and Adobe software in order to complete my image editing projects. As a result, I will pursue the third option and learn to become proficient in using another capable image editing program.

P.S. The screenshots included in this post were formatted and cropped using Adobe Photoshop CS3.

Addendum: System Requirements to Upgrade Photoshop

Below is a list of the minimum system requirements needed to run Adobe Photoshop Elements 2022 or 2023 for macOS.

macOS

• Intel 6th Generation or newer processor; Apple M1 processor

• macOS 11, macOS 12 (12.4 or later)

• 8GB of RAM

• 6GB of available hard-disk space to install application; additional space required for downloading online content; up to 20GB additional space required for temporary files during product installation and usage (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash storage devices)

• 1280×800 display resolution (at 100% scale factor)

• Internet connection required for product activation and download of feature and online content