Definitive Answer - El Capitan / Adobe CS6

You'll probably get a lot more useful information on adobe's forums.

I'm running CS5 on a retina iMac with El Capitan 10.11.4 which works fine.

Great you're running CS5 with no issues. I read that unlike Photoshop CS6, which was upgraded for retina, InDesign CS6 and Illustrator CS6 would perform poorly; InDesign in particular would be pixelated and slow to scroll. Good news for me, as I use both CS6 and CC am looking at retina El Capitan iMacs. Thanks!

CS5 Indesign I do not know as I never use it. PSD and Illustrator seem ok.

jtfdesign wrote:

I have been reading up a lot, but have yet to find a definitive answer on compatibility.

There is a good reason for that. It will vary depending on which hardware it's running on and what other software is installed. It can also depend on which features a user makes use of in a particular application. In other words, one user may use certain features of an app that work fine, but another user may use other features that don't work at all.

Just my two cents.

Adobe has made it clear they do not support Creative Suite any longer, this was announced before the release of OS 10.11 so any comptatiblity is not intentional and if an incremental upgrade breaks compatibility there will be no fix from Adobe or Apple

So while adobe has never posted AFAICT as document on the support matrix of CSx they have posted on one for Photoshop

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

no version of Photoshop other than CC2015 is supported by Adobe in OS 10.11 and any performance issues, compatibly issues or lack there of are exclusive to the user.

Adobe CS Design Standard can be purchased from Adobe, Adobe states the compatibly is limited to OS 10.6.8 or 10.7 on their website.

http://shop.adobe.com/store/adbehme/en_IE/pd/ThemeID.29250800/productID.24925700 0

I Know this is not what you are looking to hear, but this has helped a lot of people I know that used Adobe software. Maybe it can help you.

What we did is to move to other non-Adobe software from CS6 and we are very happy with this decision. No more worrying or waiting for Adobe to support OSX El Capitan or future OSX versions. There are plenty of choices out there. Find the ones that work for you and drop Adobe.

see what other software can work for you.

JimmyCMPIT wrote:

Adobe CS Design Standard can be purchased from Adobe, Adobe states the compatibly is limited to OS 10.6.8 or 10.7 on their website.

http://shop.adobe.com/store/adbehme/en_IE/pd/ThemeID.29250800/productID.24925700 0

That offer may be geographically limited. The web page says it's the Middle East and North Africa store. I can't find that product on North American web site pages.

Hi Bill H

So what did you end up using? I looked at Affinity but only briefly.

That link is not up-to-date. I'm currently running Photoshop CS6 Extended on Yosemite with no problems that I have observed.

the link is up-to-date, because the product is no longer supported by Adobe, the content of the link coincided with the lifecycle of the product that ended years ago. CS6 is now Use at your own risk software and while much of it appears to work not all of it does depending on a host of factors. If Photoshop works for you (In Yosemite, which is another forum enitrely) that's great, but Illustrator and InDesign and InCopy and Dreamweaver and Acrobat Pro have their share of problems in OS 10.11 which is the point and they are also CS6 products, and Adobe will not support this software any longer, even the link on the page that says 'call to buy CS6" when you call they will no longer sell it to you.

http://www.adobe.com/products/cs6.html

I won't say that you'll have no issues, but I recently upgraded our 2008 Mac Pro from Snow Leopard to El Capitan. I installed El Capitan on an erased drive and then the few apps that Mac needed on it - Photoshop CS6, Office 2011 and a few utility apps. PS CS6 works perfectly.

Hi Kurt,

OK, so now we all know that the definitive' answer' (or not!) is that Adobe CS6 'can be' problematical in certain circumstances in operation under El Capitan.

Your way of testing by installing El Capitan and CS6 on an external hard drive and booting from it is he best way to go. I shall be doing the same thing when and if I need to consider updating to EC.

I am in the same situation as many impoverished designers in that I just cannot afford to pay a subscription for CC and quite frankly am annoyed that we are being forced to pay up or lose out.

I've been looking closely at Affinity Designer (to replace Illustrator) and Affinity Photo (Photoshop) - both very good apps.

FWIW, the Affinity applications are very well done and certainly cheaper. There are other alternatives as well. If Adobe isn't careful they are going to alienate their customer base.