Odd Error in Photoshop

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Today’s Question: When I launch Photoshop I’m first seeing a message that suggests it is looking for Lightroom photos. Then I get a message that says, “This service is not available. Please check your network settings.” How do I stop this? I never have photos in anyone’s cloud, and I have no idea of what “network settings” the error message refers to. How do I turn this off so I have just the simplest opening screen?

Tim’s Quick Answer: This message indicates Photoshop is attempting to provide access to photos you have synchronized to the cloud via Lightroom. You can bypass this screen altogether for a simpler startup experience in Photoshop by turning on the “Disable the Home Screen” checkbox on the General tab of the Preferences dialog.

More Detail: With a recent update Adobe added a new “Home Screen” to Photoshop. This provides quick access to existing documents from several sources, as well as options for creating new documents. One of the options for accessing existing photos is “LR Photos”, found toward the top-left of the Home Screen.

When the LR Photos option is selected, Photoshop will display photos that have been synchronized from Lightroom. That could include photos added to synchronized collections in Lightroom Classic CC, or photos imported to Lightroom CC on a computer or mobile device.

If you aren’t making use of synchronization in Lightroom, you could choose the “Home” option at the top-left of the Home Screen. If you don’t want to see the Home Screen at all when you launch Photoshop, you can simply disable it.

To disable the Home Screen start by going to the Photoshop menu on Macintosh or the Edit menu on Windows. Then choose “Preferences” followed by “General”. This will bring up the Preferences dialog with the General tab selected. In the Options section of the General tab, turn on the “Disable the Home Screen” checkbox. Click OK to apply the change, and then quit Photoshop. The next time you launch Photoshop, you’ll see only the actual Photoshop interface, with no images opened and no Home Screen to distract you.