Apple Silicon Support roadmap

I use an M1 Mini. Great machine. I use Ps and Affinity Photo which are both available an Universal apps running native mode on Apple Silicon machines. Native mode Ps or Photo can’t run Intel plugins. So I need a roadmap of when the Topaz apps will be released as Universal apps so they can also run native mode on Apple Silicon machines. This should be an all the more important question when Apple announces more Apple Silicon MacBooks and iMacs in April.

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At the very least it would be helpful if this limitation were recognized or documented in the install process… having spent half an hour trying to follow the old steps to fix plugins before finding this is very frustrating!

Topaz can continue to ignore the early adopters of Apple Silicon using the first three Macs with M1. But when Apple launches the other MacBooks and new iMacs all using Apple Silicon in April, the lack of a published story on when we will get Apple Silicon support will not win new friends.

As the interactive process of updates continues from Apple, Adobe, and Topaz (and others) — it might be more helpful to list M1 support as M1 Rosetta or M1 native (or M1 Intel and M1 ARM).

Those of us with M1’s are trying to figure out what works, and what doesn’t (yet). Any guidance to keep us from wasting time would be appreciated.

Sometimes an update (say, in this case) from Apple or Adobe might be holding back the progress, but there’s nothing to say, until that happens.

As a retired support guy, I’ve seen these processes repeat over the years. We used to call this, building airplanes in the sky.

Issue: Plug-ins not available
Workaround: Intel-based plug-ins will not appear in Photoshop. Run Intel-based plugins with Photoshop on Rosetta to install and use those plugins until your plugin provider delivers Apple silicon-compatible versions.

Issue: Missing or unsupported extensions
Workaround: To use extensions that rely on CEP, install and run them in Rosetta mode only. Once you launch under Rosetta, you may need to go to Window / Extensions (legacy) to open your CEP panels again. Note: You will not see the “Open in Rosetta” option if you are right-clicking on an “alias”.
For more information on the replacement technology for CEP, see UXP for Adobe Photoshop.

The terms Apple uses is Universal to indicate an app that has been updated to run native mode (without Rosetta II emulation, on an Apple Silicon based Mac. Apps that have not been updated and have to use Rosetta II emulation are shown as Intel applications. See attached picture of the Info dialog box of Lr Classic and Photoshop. Note you can decide to run a Universal app with Rosetta II. That is the only way such an app can use plugins or extensions that have not be updated. But, you do lose the performance increase of running native mode on Apple Silicon.

I would love to see native Apple Silicon support for all the Topaz products. Apple Silicon is the future for Mac users, and as the owner of one of these machines, I would like to get better performance from my Topaz apps and plugins.

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It’s December and I don’t see an answer to this question yet. Any idea of when an Apple Silicon native version will be available? It would be appreciated to get a timeline of silicon support.

Thanks so much!

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Tomorrow Apple will be introducing more killer machines on Apple Silicon. Also Capture One has announced the public Beta of C1P for iPadOS. So we need all plugins running in Universal mode for desktops and ported to iPadOS by the end of summer. Topaz should not want folks using C1P for iPad to get used to either not having their plugins or, having someone else’s. Since On1 plugins are already on Universal mode and are full plugins (not just external editors) to C1P on MacOS, it should be an easier step for them to release iPad versions.

I would also like to cast my vote for M1 native apps. I just purchased the Topaz bundle and was disappointed to find that only one of the apps was M1 native. It kind of makes me feel like these are legacy products. I hope that is not the case.

Welcome to the community John!

Fellow M1 user here. Been on the M1 train since it started, recently sold the farm to grab an M1 Ultra 128 and like you, I’m looking forward to all the apps being native.

That said, right now there are four that are native, I use them daily and have been part of the beta developers for over two years now. What I can tell you is that the team at Topaz have made huge gains with the 4 that are native from before they were native (using Rosetta and then Rosetta2).

Video Enhance AI (v2.6.4), Sharpen Ai (v4.1.0), DeNoise Ai (v3.7.0) and GigaPixel AI (v6.1.0) are all native M1 and have been for awhile, I by accident downloaded the wrong versions once but I think Topaz patched their system so when you request from an Arm64 machine (M1) it gives you the right version.

I still have my 2019 Mac Pro beast and have the full suite on that so I have the non M1 apps and honestly, the four they have brought to M1 Native are the four I used 95% of the time so I’m not too bothered that I don’t have Mask AI, Adjust AI, JPEGtoRAW AI or Topaz Studio but sure, like you… I bought the suite so it’d be nice to have them all.

Side note… don’t get sucked in by YT reviews on other plugins. I myself am a coder/youtuber/reviewer wanna be (lol) and I’ve purchased three different companies versions of Denoise/Sharpen in an effort to see what worked best for me but also what was just best all around in my opinion. I purchased plugins from On1, DxO and Luminar and while all are fine on their own, TopazLabs have been doing it longer it seems so they seem to have a better grasp. I don’t even use the other plugins now from the other companies. In time I’ll make a video walk through for others showing several photos run through each companies offerings. Part of me doesn’t want to because I feel I’d be showing unkind variations with others lol.

Again, welcome to the TopazLabs community!

Re-upping this thread!
Where’s the Apple Silicon support??
The entire film and TV industry is run on Macs so this NEEDS TO HAPPEN ASAP!