How To Install and Use Adobe Photoshop on Linux

Not supported but possible with a few workarounds

Linux is an excellent alternative to running Windows—it’s free, quick, and offers plenty of alternatives to major Windows apps. If you’re aLinux beginner, you might be curious to know if you can install and use Adobe Photoshop on your Linux PC.

Photoshop isn’t technically supported on Linux, but there are some workarounds you can use to install and use it on your Linux PC. To install and use Adobe Photoshop on Linux, follow the steps below.

Is Photoshop Supported on Linux?

Adobe Photoshop isn’t officially supported on Linux by Adobe. However, there are still ways to install and run Photoshop on Linux systems for users who want to ditch Windows or macOS.

One popular method to run Photoshop on Linux is throughWine. No, not the alcoholic beverage—Wine on Linux is a compatibility layer that allows you to emulate the necessary Windows-specific tools and files torun Windows applications on Linux PCs.

You can use a supportive GUI app calledPlayOnLinuxto simplify the process. However, there’s one caveat.Wine and PlayOnLinux will only reliably allow you toinstall an older version of Photoshop. To be clear, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll be able to install a modern version of Photoshop (like Photoshop 2022 or 2023) using Wine, as support is quite lacking.

Another method to use Photoshop on Linux is by setting up avirtual machine. This allows you to run a full Windows environment within Linux, which can then run Photoshop. You can run the most modern versions of Photoshop on a virtual machine (as long as you have the system resources for it).

Keep in mind that both of the mentioned methods come with their limitations and potential issues. As we’ve suggested, Wiine doesn’t easily support the newest versions of Photoshop or its most recent features. Running Photoshop on a virtual machine, however, can have an impact on your system performance.

For users who do not require the full power of Photoshop, there are several free and open-source alternatives for Linux users,including GIMP. These alternatives might satisfy most of your image editing needs without running Photoshop on Linux.

How to Install Adobe Photoshop on Linux using Wine and PlayOnLinux

Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy method for installing Photoshop on Linux. While attempts have been made to simplify the process for modern versions of Photoshop (such as various, no-longer-supported GitHub projects), these don’t seem to work particularly well to be recommended for most users.

If you want to install Photoshop without a virtual machine, your best method is to try and useWine, software that allows you to run Windows applications on Linux. To help use Wine, you can also use a GUI wrapper calledPlayOnLinuxwhich will help you manage and install Windows applications.

For this to work, you’ll also need to have theinstallation files for Photoshopaccessible on your PC. You may need a Windows PC or virtual machine to download the files first. You can check support for your version of Photoshop on theWineHQ website.

To install Adobe Photoshop on Linux using Wine, follow these steps.

If you follow the steps correctly, Photoshop will install on your PC. However, your mileage may vary—expect random bugs and installation issues, depending on your version of Photoshop.

After all, this is a compatibility layer for Windows, but it isn’t the real deal. If you encounter problems, or if you can’t install a newer version of Photoshop, you’ll need to try the virtual machine method below instead.

How to Install Adobe Photoshop on Linux using a Virtual Machine

If Wine doesn’t work, you may consider installing Photoshop on Linux using a virtual machine instead. If you install a Windows virtual machine in VirtualBox, you can run Photoshop in that environment without switching from Linux.

Follow these steps to install Adobe Photoshop on Linux using a virtual machine.

Now you should be able to run Photoshop on your virtual machine. If you run into any performance issues, increase the level of resources available to the virtual machine to allow Photoshop to run more effectively.

For example, increasing the available RAM or CPU cores will help Photoshop to run more smoothly. If you continue to have issues, you may need to consider dual-booting Windows and Linux as an alternative—you can switch to Windows whenever you need to run Photoshop instead.

Using Photoshop on Linux

If you’ve followed the steps above, you should be able to begin using Photoshop on Linux. If you face issues likePhotoshop not opening, you’ll need to troubleshoot the problem by trying an alternative method—or consider switching to an alternative image editor like GIMP instead.

Want to ditch other Windows apps like Office? You canrun Office in Linuxusing Wine or a virtual machine, too.

New to Photoshop? You may want to tryvectorizing an imageto make it easy to scale the image size up and down next.

Ben Stockton is a freelance technology writer based in the United Kingdom. In a past life, Ben was a college lecturer in the UK, training teens and adults. Since leaving the classroom, Ben has taken his teaching experience and applied it to writing tech how-to guides and tutorials, specialising in Linux, Windows, and Android. He has a degree in History and a postgraduate qualification in Computing.Read Ben’s Full Bio

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