If you can afford it (RM800 for an additional 8GB RAM), you’ll see performance improvements for Photoshop with additional RAM, especially if you have multiple files open at once with heavy browsing in the background. However, most people are commenting that an 8GB M1 Mac performs like a 16GB intel Mac. I just got an M1 Mac Mini yesterday with Photoshop installed but I haven’t done enough testing yet.

The reason why some reviewers commented that an 8GB M1 performs so well is because the swap files are written on the fast SSD that comes soldered with the chip. So there is no speed penalty even though the machine have to create a large swap file to handle the load. However, SSDs are known to have a limited shelf life and this constant read-write-erase may shortened its lifespan.

What I personally did was to upgrade to 16GB (you can’t add additional RAM later) but stick to the base 256GB SSD (you can always connect to external SSD).

Of course, everything is relative. Even with an 8GB RAM, I believe that the machine can work flawlessly for 5-6 years. With some forward planning your Macs can work perfectly for many years to come. My oldest machine which is used by my kids now is a 2009 iMac which still works perfectly (though Apple stopped MacOS updates to the model years ago).

Did some quick test to replicate your work environment. I have done the following:-
- Loaded around 10 files in Photoshop- a combination of complex layered PSD files (with text and layer effects) as well as a few RAW photos
- Opened 20 tabs on Safari (a combination of pages with complex Javascript, YouTube (with videos playing), Flickr, 500px, news sites, etc)
- My productivity software (Outlook, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Slack) was opened in the background
- Tidal playing in the background

Observations:-
1. Loading in Photoshop (average file size between 80-100MB for the layered files and 50MB for the RAW photos) was extremely fast
2. Everything that I was playing in the background (music from Tidal, YouTube videos on the tabs) was still playing without any lag or pauses
3. CPU load was at 20% (Idle standing at 79.82%). Biggest CPU hogger was Photoshop which took up 25.8% of the CPU. Not much CPU pressure here.



4. Swap file was at 6.44GB while 12.37GB of RAM was used up. Not much memory pressure here.



Overall, 16GB would be more than comfortable for what you need. Do bear in mind that Photoshop hasn't been optimized for the M1 yet so it is still running under emulation mode with Rosetta 2. Even then, it still performs better than my current 2018 Intel MacBook Pro! With an Apple Silicon version coming in Q1 2021, expect more efficient RAM and CPU utilisation.

I usually do not run Windows under Parallels on the Mac. Actually, I've haven't got much software that I can't do natively on MacOS. Also, there is no Parallels that work with M1 yet except for the Technical Review that they have right now. Even then, the Technical Review only emulates an ARM machine and you need to install the ARM version of Windows (also a preview). From YouTube creators initial trial, it is not looking like a workable solution yet as it is pretty buggy and slow. And Microsoft's x64 emulator on the ARM version of Windows is also pretty slow and doesn't work with all software yet.

Do bear in mind that I did the test on the Mac mini M1 (which has a fan) and not on the MacBook Air. (which doesn't). Under immense load, the Air will thermal throttle. However, as I was doing the test, I was listening to see if the fans turned on (it didn't) and touched it regularly (it was still as cool as can be). I must say that I am really impressed with the performance of the Apple Silicon M1. In fact, I don't recall hearing the fans turning on or the machine running hot at all since powering it up yesterday.

I never had any problems launching Photoshop. My experience with Adobe apps:-

1. New machine so had to set up from scratch
2. Went to Adobe.com, signed in to Creative Cloud account. Download Adobe Photoshop
3. Launched it. System prompt: As you are running Intel app for first time, do you want to install Rosetta 2. Click "Yes"
4. Installed Photoshop. Then prompt came up asking if I want to install Creative Cloud desktop. Click "Yes"
5. Launched Photoshop- authenticate with Creative Cloud credentials
6. Running fine since then

The Mac mini shipped with a version go Big Sur that has to be updated. Go to Systems Preferences to see if there are pending MacOS updates. Read that they have made some improvements to Rosetta 2 in that update.

You may want to see if the following are culprits:-

1. Adobe Photoshop version: I'm running version 22.1.0 which is downloaded from Adobe's website as part of the Creative Cloud Photography Plan. I understand that there is a beta version that runs natively on Apple Silicon but I didn't opt for that one as there are a lot of features that don't work yet. Instead, I am using the latest Intel version.



2. Scratch disk: is it pointing to an external drive that is NTFS and you haven't installed NTFS-drivers correctly (Big Sur changed the way on how programs like Paragon installs on system- it requires a reboot into another screen to install systems extension)



3. Graphics processing: I've defaulted on this setting but I did notice that under "Advanced Settings..." there is a "30 Bit Display" option. I am connecting my Mac Mini to a display that is capable of handling 30 Bit colours but you can try toggling off-and-on to see if it helps.





This post has been edited by dogsick: Dec 25 2020, 07:06 PM