The newest Mac operating system, macOS 11 Big Sur, went live this week. The big question is, do Lightroom and Lightroom Classic work? And how about Apple with the M1 processor in the new 13″ MacBook Pros and Mac mini, will Lightroom work on that?
In this post we will look at the different Lightroom versions and how they are affected, also any related aspects that may affect your decision to upgrade to Big Sur.
Big Sur has been used by quite a number of testers as a beta version, but there may be additional issues that haven’t been found yet. We’ll keep this blog updated as any additional problems are found.
Lightroom Desktop (the cloud-based version)
Big Sur:
Lightroom Desktop 4.0 (cloud service) is compatible with macOS Big Sur. Desktop 3.x has not been tested. Earlier versions are not supported by Adobe.
Apple M1 processor:
Lightroom Desktop 4.0 (cloud service) is not officially supported running under Rosetta 2 emulation mode. Native support is promised by Adobe in 2020.
Lightroom Classic
Big Sur:
Lightroom Classic 10.0 is compatible with macOS Big Sur. Classic 9.x has not been tested. Earlier versions are not supported by Adobe.
Apple M1 processor:
Lightroom Classic 10.0 is not officially supported running under Rosetta 2 emulation mode. Native support is promised by Adobe in 2021.
Related accessories
Often the bigger issues tend to revolve around driver support for related software. As we get updates we’ll update this blog.
Contour Shuttle Pro – there is now a Beta driver update to work with Big Sur, check their website for updates.
Peripherals to check
- Printer drivers
- Scanner drivers
- Wacom tablets
- Backup software compatibility (ChronoSync is already compatible with version 4.9.12)
As we gather more feedback we’ll continue to update this blog.
For extensive information on Lightroom Classic, see Adobe Lightroom Classic – The Missing FAQ.
If you have the Photography Plan, then as well as Classic you have access to the Lightroom cloud ecosystem including the mobile apps and web interface. For more information on these apps, see Adobe Lightroom – Edit on the Go.
Note: purchase of these books includes the first year’s Classic or cloud-based Premium Membership (depending on the book purchased), giving access to download the latest eBook (each time Adobe updates the software), email assistance for the applicable Lightroom version if you hit a problem, and other bonuses.
We also have a special bundle offer for the two books. This includes Premium Membership for the first year as described above for the whole Lightroom family!
Hi, I have trouble with LR 6 after upgrading to Big Sur. I have rend that LR Classic 10 is not running well with Big Sur either. Can you confirm what is actuelle compatible with Big Sur? Thank you for your help.
Apparently a lot of users are stating that LR Classic 10 is not compatible with Big Sur!
It’s not something we’re hearing or seeing – lots on the Forums are running Classic on Big Sur (ourselves included) without issues.
Lightroom 6 hasn’t been supported by Adobe since October 2017, and while it may run on Big Sur if it was already installed from a macOS previous to Catalina, it has 32-bit components and the change Apple made in Catalina to only support 64-bit Apps in the OS limits its life further.
I’m having a ton of trouble getting all of my custom presets imported onto my new Apple Silicon (2020, Big Sur 11.2.1) in Lightroom Classic (both 10.1.1). They didn’t copy over with an install from Time Machine backup from my older 2015 Mac (running Big Sur 11.1). I air-dropped them to my new machine and copied them into the correct folder using Lightroom Classic –>Preferences –> Presets. After a LRC restart, nothing shows up. This is pretty frustrating as I depend heavily on all kinds of presets to streamline my workflow. Do you have any suggestions or know of any issues?
It looks like removing any non-cloud content is deleted, but this still doesn’t explain why I can’t copy the custom presets into LRC.
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/20/adobe-lightroom-ios-update-photos-deleted/
Well, I think I figured out how to copy everything into the right folders but man it took a long time! Couldn’t quite tell you what I did as I tried so many things I didn’t notice what worked.
Details on the default folders for Presets, Templates, etc are on our backup blog post”:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/backup-lightroom-files/
My problem (Mac OS 11.2.1 & LR Classic 10.1.1) is that I can’t email from LR. If I right click on a photo the e-mail photo is greyed out, and if I do it via File > E-mail photo LR says Preparing File for E-mail. I don’t know if this is a bug or something in the setup?
It’s hard to say without extra information. Post it on the forum (linked in the menubar) and we’ll help you troubleshoot.
I have a new M1 Mac with Big Sur installed. I use the desktop based Lightroom classic which is up to date. I have found that my Epson 3880 printer works with the latest software update however there is an an error message about a missing usb mass driver.
My biggest issue with LR is that any import does not go into the folder on my external drive that I choose. Instead a second folder listing the name of my hard drive is created and the imports are put into it in a subfolder with the same name as the one I was trying to import into. I am able to then move the imported image into the folder I intended and the second listing for my hard drive disappears. The same thing happens when I save from PS. Extra steps but at least I have a workaround.
None of my Topaz products work with the new system but they promise native support “within a few months”.
Other than that LR and PS work well for my needs but work flow is no quicker than on my 10 year old MacBook running Catalina. Hopefully that will improve with native LR and PS apps that are promised.
Hi Alex
Sounds like the capitalization issue – check this blog:
https://www.lightroomqueen.com/capitalization-catalog-error/
On the M1 MacBook Pro, will Lightroom Classic CC and Final Cut Pro X run simultaneously? If so, is the 16GB RAM option required?
We don’t have any feedback on this as yet and don’t use Final Cut Pro. However, 8Gb is the minimum for Lightroom Classic, 16Mb is recommended, so we’d suggest in terms of RAM go for 16Gb.
I have problems with the integrations of catalogues with Big Sur I had to download all my photos from external drives. Had I known I would not have up dated. Will learn for future update.
That sounds like a macOS permissions issue, I haven’t seen any other reports like that.
That’s good to hear Rick & Marty, thanks for the updates.
I have a new Macbook Air with M1 chip (max’d out). It came with BigSur installed. I have had no issues with either of the current versions of Lightroom Classic and Photoshop, and they seem to run fast. And with 2tb of flash memory I am now able to store my entire photo library on the computer rather than on an external drive. (Yes, I use TimeMachine and BackBlaze to ensure proper backups). My printer on the other hand is not recognized and I can’t see it to install it. I’m having to transfer files from the Air to my iMac to print. Hopefully this is a recognized issue that will be resolved soon.
I did side-by-side testing with my 2018 i7 Mac mini (with Vega 56 eGPU) and an M1 Mac mini with Lightroom Classic 10.0, and while the i7 with eGPU is perhaps slightly smoother in making adjustments, the M1 is completely usable for my 20MP raw files, and is even a bit faster doing exports to JPG (about 4% faster on a ~500 shot export).
Is Lightroom 6 Compatible with M1 processor?
The Apple M1 Processor runs Big Sur. Big Sur is a 64-bit operating system and, like Catalina before it, will not let you install 32-bit applications. Lightroom 6 had 32-bit elements (particularly the Installer) so, no, it won’t.
“Lightroom Classic 10.0 is not officially supported running under Rosetta 2 emulation mode.”
“Emulation” is a misnomer. Traditional “emulation” has involved a performance hit due to CPU cycles being consumed by real-time translation. That is not the case here, which is why many non-native apps are nonetheless running quite fast.
The code is not being translated on-the-fly. Rather, it is automatically translated and saved the first time the app is launched to make the app’s code on that Mac native. As a result, no CPU cycles are consumed by emulation while using the app. Any future performance improvements will come from developers optimizing the code in creating their own native version of the app for Apple Silicon.
Thanks for the techie detail Jacques, that’s good to know.
Contour ShuttlePro does not work under Big Sur – they have not released a driver yet: https://contour-design.co.uk/support/drivers/
Thank you for the update, we’ve posted this in the main article now!
Initially did a ‘clean’ install of Big Sur, Lightroom Classic, Lightroom and Photoshop on a secondary machine – this actually proved far less troublesome than the update to Catalina last time which upset quite number of third-party apps.
Following this encouraging result have now done a further ‘clean’ install as above on the main machine – the only negative comment I would make from my own experience is that a basic Wacom graphics tablet proved an absolute pain to get working (security permissions are the challenge and the guidance on the Wacom site didn’t quite work – eventually found a simplified workaround online).
Disclaimer: Haven’t yet tried tethering to a Nikon DSLR which has frequently been a challenge with previous upgrades.
In LR 10 on Big Sur, DNG pictures do not show images with right colors. Printouts (on paper) will get their profiles, so that is ok, but they look ugly on schreen in Printmodule (like witout icc) – Looking forward for next update. – And I needed to reinstall print drivers for my Canon pro 1000 and pro 2000 to get it to work again with icc profiles after upgrading to Bic Sur. Epson Printer was ok.
I haven’t seen any other reports on that, so post it as a bug at https://feedback.photoshop.com
Quite apart from checking compatibility with LR etc I suggest caution before updating to Big Sur. I, like many others, had major problem when the “upgrade” was installed over the weekend. The installation failed and then my Mac would not boot at all. After 4hrs on Support Call with Apple to reinstall CatalinaOS and restoring data from Time Machine backup (you do have a backup don’t you?), it is nearly back to normal.
Just got to get LR to sync with the catalogue etc
Leave Big Sur for a few weeks and then good luck!
We know quite a few have upgraded quite happily, but we’d generally suggest, especially for Production machines, wait for the first dot release of Big Sur when more issues have emerged and been fixed.
On my macbook, Lightroom Classic has an issue where the radial filter is inverted by default and you have to check “invert” to get it to go back to normal. Everything else seems normal so far.
Select the Radial Filter, make sure it’s set to New at the top and then set the invert checkbox to your preference. That should then become the default for new radial filters in future.
How about Photoshop 2020 .
Needs to be Photoshop 22 (confirmed compatible) but there are some known issues.
M1 processor will be 2021.