Monterey/Photoshop Elements

Try this:open a Finder window, select Go from the menu bar at the top of the screen, hold down the Option key to reveal the Library folder option in the dropdown menu,open the folder Preferences,drag the item "com.adobe.PhotoshopElements" in the trash folder and delete it.It must be done every time before you start Photoshop Elements 2021-2022 since they don't fix the bug.

Looking at the Adobe support forum for Photoshop Elements, it appears that Adobe has dropped the ball with checking compatibility with macOS Monterey. You're not unique with this problem as it appears PSE 2021 is not working for many. I would expect Adobe to address this shortly.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-elements-discussions/adobe-photoshop-elements-22-doesn-t-work-correctly-with-mac-os-monterey-new-os-released-2-days-ago/m-p/12479435

Photoshop Elements is basically a stripped-down version of Photoshop. Since it Photoshop does run on macOS Monterey, it would be safe to say that the issue with Elements should be resolved soon. If the poster in the link is accurate, I am somewhat surprised given the size of Adobe that they didn't test PSE with macOS Monterey.

I recently upgraded my MacPRO OS to Monterey. The Adobe Elements 2021 program that I use for my business would no longer open. Adobe support could not help me. They told me I shouldn’t have done the upgrade. I tried to recover the older OS (Mojave) through TimeWindow backup, but it would not complete. I finally took the machine and TimeWindow drive to a service provider. They had the same problem with the backup. They had to wipe the hard drive, clean install Mojave and drag over the user data from the backup manually. I’m now having to download most of my photo files from the Cloud and reinstall Elements. Hopefully this will work. So far this has cost me many hours and almost a month of lost business, plus $200 for service.

I’ve been using Apple computers since 1984 and have spent many thousands of dollars on your products. Very recently I purchased a new iPad Pro. I’m living on a fixed income and whatever I can make from my photography business. This has been very costly and I can see no other reason for it than missteps in cooperation between Adobe and Apple.

Having searched a number of forums to solve this problem it appears that I’m not unique in having these problems with Monterey. It seems to me that Adobe is probably one of the main third party companies used by Mac users for design, etc. There is no good excuse, in my opinion for such important partners to so badly screw up a release/update through poor coordination.

I have been interacting on several threads within the Adobe Community and have two workarounds that generally work but do not solve the problem with PSE 2021 (and presumably also PSE 2022). Note that I am using the 27" Intel iMac from last year.

First option: Restart Monterey and try again. Generally you can get one operation of Editor per restart.

Second option: Use an executable file hidden within the PSE 2021 folder. The path is /Applications/Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021/Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021. (You get into the Contents folder by right clicking the app found within the PSE 2021 folder.) For me, this works about one out of every three attempts.

A helpful employee of Adobe who happens to follow discussions posted the second option but could not give a timetable for getting this issue properly fixed.

Too late for a ‘workaround.’ The result of this mess has already cost me hundreds of dollars, more than as month of business and uncounted hours of time (still counting). I’ve had to reinstall my system and major software and am rebuilding all of my Elements files and settings from the ground up. Whether it was Adobe or Apple responsible for this I’m unlikely to accept any ‘updates’ any time soon. My trust in both companies (particularly Adobe) has taken a very serious hit going forward.

As a supplement to the helpful suggestion from enrico277, note the following comment I posted on a different discussion topic a while ago:

I have been interacting on several threads within the Adobe Community and have two workarounds that generally work but do not solve the problem with PSE 2021 (and presumably also PSE 2022). Note that I am using the 27" Intel iMac from last year.

First option: Restart Monterey and try again. Generally you can get one operation of Editor per restart.

Second option: Use an executable file hidden within the PSE 2021 folder. The path is /Applications/Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021/Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021.app/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021. (You get into the Contents folder by right clicking the app found within the PSE 2021 folder.) For me, this works about one out of every three attempts.

A helpful employee of Adobe who happens to follow discussions posted the second option but could not give a timetable for getting this issue properly fixed.

I tried deleting the "com.adobe.PhotoshopElements" library file on my M1 iMac running Monterey 12.0.1, but can't get the Photo Editor to load, still shows as Not Responding and have to force quit. Even tried after restart, nothing.

Anybody got any other workarounds I can try?

I use 2022 version on MacBook Pro 13" M1 Monterey. I don't delete anything. Just restart, open Adobe Photoshop Elements 2022.app, click Editor and it works. I use it and hide it several times since couple of days.

Thanks for this information it’s really helped, guess I need to upgrade from Elements 2021 to 2022 - jeez software these days seems to last about as long as a prawn sandwich :-) Did have a look at full Photoshop via monthly CC subscription - didn’t have a clue what I was looking at in the interface - but think this is probably where we’re all going to be pushed in the future ☹️

Bottom line, this was a major oversight by both Apple and Adobe that has resulted in countless hours and dollars wasted by customers that have depended on the competence and integrity of both companies. For me, the result has meant months of having to rebuild and reorganize the data vital to my business, a task that will take weeks if not months to complete.

Unexcusable.