Today’s Question: I had responded to Adobe’s promotion efforts of last year and installed Photoshop Beta, but when I did that, the beta version became the default Photoshop for the “Edit In” command in Lightroom Classic. Is there was way I can install both the production version of Photoshop and the Beta, but ensure that the production Photoshop will always be the default choice for editing an image moving from Lightroom Classic?
Tim’s Quick Answer: Yes, you can indeed choose which version of Photoshop will be used for the Edit In command in Lightroom Classic, including selecting between multiple beta or production versions.
More Detail: While it has always been possible to have more than one version of Photoshop installed, that hasn’t typically created any problems because in most cases the latest version would be the default version. However, since Adobe added the option for anyone to install a public beta version of Photoshop, that has added a potential challenge. In many cases, for example, the public beta would be the latest version, and therefore the default version.
Fortunately, there is now a “Photoshop version” option for the Edit In command for Photoshop within Lightroom Classic.
To choose the version of Photoshop you want to set as the default, first go to the Preferences dialog in Lightroom Classic by choosing Edit > Preferences on Windows or Lightroom Classic > Preferences on Macintosh. Go to the External Editing tab and click on the “Photoshop version” popup. The popup will include all versions of Photoshop that are currently installed.
In this case, for example, you can choose “Adobe Photoshop 2024” rather than the beta version. With this option set, anytime you use the Photo > Edit In command from the menu the selected images will be opened in the version of Photoshop you selected in Preferences.
If you later decide you want to use a different version of Photoshop for a particular image, simply update the setting in Preferences before opening that image. When you’re done, you can return the setting to your preferred version of Photoshop.
