Does CS3 run on El Capitan ?

If you still want to use CS3, I would suggest to wait on upgrading to El Capitan. Wait until everybody is happy.

I have an iMAC and have been running CS3 on Yosemite (with a plug in I downloaded long time ago). It's been fine, perfect. All that until I upgraded to El Capitan. Now none of my CS3 applications open. In Photoshop, I got the message, "Adobe Photoshop not open in this computer". I've been in every website looking for answers.

I'll go on details:

I upgraded to El capitan on Saturday (I shouldn't). Right away, upon trying to open Photoshop CS3, it asked me to first download Java 6 to keep legacy. It worked fine until Sunday. I was working on a project but had to leave, so I shut down my Mac, came back about an hour and a half later, turn on the Mac to continue my work and Adobe Suite CS3 did not open anymore, exactly 24 hours after I upgraded to El Capitan.

Searching for answers, I found out I was not the only one with that problem. Many users are even having problems with CS6 !! One solution on the Apple community suggested to downgrade to Yosemite. For that I need first to erase El Capitan. I started to follow the steps but got stuck on the 2nd one (no alterations on the Mac yet), when one of my windows did not match what the step-by-step solution explained. I'm not too good at some technical stuff, I know my limits, so I decided to stop there.

I also know there will be a fix coming from Apple. They always help, I'll just have to wait.

SUCCESS !!

This was too easy - Apple has fixed the problem, and the installer puts legacy Java6 where it needs to go. Download Java for OS X 2015-001 and run the installer, it handles everything. Two years of despair for being forced to "upgrade" and break Photoshop ----> is gone. Strange what constitutes a victory these days.

I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 today and it appeared normal, didn't crash. (fingers crossed for luck).

If you buy a new iMac, unless it has been on the shelf a while, it will

likely be already loaded with El Capitan (especially if buying 10).

CS3 is already 3 versions behind (4 if you include the current Creative Cloud

subscription version) and as such will likely be problematic.

It sounds like you are in some form of production environment and as such, the

new subscription model might suit you as it will be a lower cost to upgrade and

should be able to be added as a basic office expense as opposed to a purchased

version (expensive) which usually requires a multitude of signatures, a blessing from the

Pope, and an act of God. The smaller subscription payments are usually more

palatable to the bean counters.

Hopefully your iMacs are not too old and unable to install El Capitan. You may want to install it to an external disc, or a different partition on the internal, this will preserve the Snow Leopard installation, should anything go wrong. Lets hope it doesn't. Once El Capitan has downloaded, it will ask you if you want to go ahead with the Installation, at this point say no and quit the installer application. Look in your application folder for the Install OS X El Capitan app,

make a copy of this on a USB stick or another part of the iMacs disc, and keep for later use. If you are happy with El Capitan you can use this to install on your other iMacs, instead of having to use the App Store.

In order for PS3 to work you will need to download and install the legacy Java installer from here. It may also help with other Apps.

Java for OS X 2015-001

It is also important to find out if any other apps that are installed on your iMacs have available upgrades to make them work on El Capitan.

Oh and Apple just announced new iMacs.

Adobe Photoshop System Requirements (Photoshop 1 → Photoshop CC).

CS3 requires QuickTime 7 for multimedia features. QuickTime 7 is 32-bit and I do not believe it is available for download to El Capitan (which will be pre-installed on all new iMacs). CS3 is a 32-bit universal binary too, written for the older PowerPC and multicore Intel processors.

Some of the Photoshop plug-ins/filters/actions may simply not work on El Capitan, or may not longer be available, as they may have exploited features on your current Macs. Consider that among your upgrade costs.

I'm currently using Adobe CS3 on a late-2012 iMac, running Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11. Works fine for me, just needed the Java update.

Can't guarantee all functions work though.

Since Mavericks (if I remember correct) I've not been able to print direct from InDesign, I've had to export to pdf first. Haven't actually tried printing from ID since updating to El Capitan.

Adobe Updater always crashes when CS3 apps are opened; that doesn't affect apps though.

🙂

I use CS3 versions of Illustrator and Indesign on an external Drive A running Yosemite without any problems.

To test whether my CS3 applications would work under El Capitan, I cloned Drive A to another external drive, Drive B, using SuperDuper and upgraded Drive B to El Capitan. I had to install Java SE Runtime(?) before the CS3 applications would open under El Capitan. Illustrator CS3 opened and printed without any problems.

InDesign CS3 opened with a dialog box saying “The Workgroup Client.IndesignPlugin plug-in conflicts with Workgroup Client UI.InDesignPlugin. Try removing one of the two plug-ins from the PlugIns folder and restart Adobe Indesign.”

Clicking the “OK” or “Don’t show me this again” buttons brought up a second dialog box that said “The Workgroup Client.InDesignPlugin plug-in conflicts with Book.InDesignPlugin. Try removing one of the two plug-ins from the PlugIns folder and restart Adobe InDesign.”

Clicking “OK” opened a third dialog box that said “The Workgroup Client.InDesignPlugin plug-in conflicts with Workgroup Client.InDesignPlugin. Try removing on of the two plug-ins from the Plugins folder and restart Adobe InDesign.”

I had to force quit InDesign because that was the only way to quit the application.

Since Workgroup Client.IndesignPlugin was the problem plug-in in all 3 dialogs, I removed that plug-in. (The plug-in can be found by using the Option key while right-clicking on the Adobe InDesign CS3 icon, choosing Show Package Contents, and following this path Contents:MacOS:Required. Workgroup Client.InDesignPlugin was in the Required folder.

I moved Workgroup Client.InDesignPlugin to another folder on the external Drive B and relaunched InDesign. It opened and I printed a page from one of my documents. I don’t know the function of the plug-in so PROCEED WITH CAUTION. I don’t use the application regularly so I haven’t tested the application extensively or run into a problem. A problem is probably out there waiting to strike.

TRY THIS ONLY IF YOU ARE ADVENTUROUS. Perhaps someone knows the function of that plug-in and what might happen by removing it.

Hope this helps and above all, this is only my experience, yours may vary.

I did similar to the above post.

I'm running Yosemite on a 21" iMac mid-2011 with CS3 and use PS and ID regularly.

I used CCC (Carbon Copy Cloner) to clone my drive to an external FW drive. I upgraded the cloned drive to El Capitan and when I first opened ID I got the upgrade Java message. It gave me a link to download it and I installed it and everything opened. I had to deal with a known issue to do with printing crashing. You have to trash some files in the Hard Drive/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources folder to get printing to work. Basically trash ALL files in the Resources folder accept your printer's and Adobe's PPD files. So far so good.

As mentioned in my post I upgraded to 10.11.2 from Yosemite yesterday. When I went to opened a CS3 app a message window came up informing me of the need to install the older Java for it to work. It provided me with a link to the installer. I didn't have to go through any actions like what the YouTube video shows. It was all automated. I'm wondering if Apple may have made this installer since that video was released.

Yes, it will. At least this is the case on my 2012 MacBook Pro. When you'll start say, InDesign for the first time, you will be told to download and install Java Runtime version 6-something. The link will be provided. You can still use Java version 8 for other, non-legacy things.

Beech, CS3 has worked fine for me in both Yosemite and El Capitan. I held off upgrading to El Capitan from Yosemite on my MacBook Pro because I had read somewhere that CS3 wouldn't work on it. When I had to replace my iMac (Snow Leopard), I had no choice but to try CS3 on El Capitan. It's fine, so I upgraded on my MacBook. All's well.

very likely not, but it if is possible the most likely procedure would be to install Java SE6 before attempting to install Creative Suite

Java for OS X 2015-001

if it does not work I would not expect Adobe to come to anyone's rescue, they're busy trying push Cloud out to all legacy users, and while I finally got Ps Ai and Id to work (CC2015) in 10.11 my acrobat is boned and an Adobe sr. Tech wants me to buy a new HD because "there may be a compatibility with another application or file on another partition" so yay adobe, this is what $30 a month buys you.

CS3 is working on both my iMac and MacBook Pro with El Capitan (after downloading whatever Java Runtime is required). I would be fine finding an alternative to Photoshop. Although I've always loved it, I only use a fraction of its tools. However, I'd be lost without InDesign. Any alternatives to that?

different users report different outcomes. Adobe sates it's not supported.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/system-requirements.html

10.4.8 - 10.5.5 are the only OS's that supported CS3 when it was supported, it is no longer supported.

Proceed with caution and never proceed without a backup. In the event it stops working Adobe will not address the issue. If it does work for you count your blessings, if not GIMP is free.

According to RoaringApps (http://roaringapps.com/apps?platform=osx), Ai and Ps work. The others are listed as "not enough information"