The MacBook Pro with the Intel Core Duo processor uses a translator called Rosetta which allows Mac applications like Photoshop CS2, which are not Universal Binary ready, to run on the Intel Mac. However, they run more slowly. I was very curious to compare the speeds of the non-Universal Binary Photoshop CS2 under Rosetta versus the Windows Photoshop CS2 using Boot Camp, Apple's free download to run Windows XP Professional on my Intel-based MacBook Pro. Essentially I would be comparing a Mac version not adapted for the Intel processor and running under translation with a Windows version made for the processor and running natively in Windows. I expected the results of the uneven comparison to be lopsided. The purpose of this review is a comparison of Photoshop's performance under two operating conditions, which are definitely not equal situations. The difference is significant.

Using a stop watch I did each test five times on each side, deleted the highest and lowest scores, then took the average of the remaining three. In the first test, I timed the start-up of Photoshop CS2 on each side. On the Mac side it took 20.86 seconds and on the Windows side it took 5.44 seconds to open.

In the second test, I timed the speed of rendering a filter in Photoshop. To make the test valid, I chose the same picture and applied the same filter on the Mac and the Windows sides. Photoshop CS2 took longer to apply the filter on the Mac than in Windows. On the Mac side it took 6.32 seconds to apply the Filter>Artistic>Watercolor and 1.67 seconds on the Windows side.

Stitching three photos together to make a panorama was the third speed test and as expected, it was considerably faster on the Windows side than on the Mac side. Typical results are shown in Figure 1.

I hope that Adobe gives Mac users the Universal Binary version of Photoshop CS2 soon because the speed is considerably slower on the Mac. Seconds count for being productive. I spend a lot of time resorting to Aperture and iPhoto 6, if I need to speed up my workflow on my Mac because they are Universal already.

Adobe Photoshop CS2 with Bridge is an excellent application on its own merit but the Intel Mac users need the Universal version as soon as possible to be productive. How about it Adobe, can you give us a Universal Binary of PS CS2 BEFORE Photoshop CS3, Universal Binary, comes out the second quarter of next year?