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Earlier this week it announced a public beta of Photoshop Lightroom 2, which already includes 64-bit support on Windows and Intel-based Macs. The Mac version was already built using Apple's Cocoa framework, enabling a faster transition than possible for the Carbon-based Creative Suite applications.

Windows users will gain 64-bit support with the upcoming release of Creative Suite 4. Under current plans, Mac users won't see this until Creative Suite 5. All current Mac hardware runs on 64-bit Core 2 Duo processors. Rather than focus upon this one area for performance

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gains, Adobe is determined to maintain feature parity between the Windows and Mac platforms.

In his blog John Nack, Senior Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop, played down the significance for Mac users, citing that Final Cut Pro remains a Carbon application after nine years in the Apple stable. Apple's Mac hardware originally shifted to 64-bit processors with the introduction of the G5 five years ago.

Adobe has emphasised that the move to 64-bit applications is not a panacea for better performance. This may come from better optimisation of code for multi-core processors and by leveraging the graphics processing unit (GPU).

In the interim, Windows users will see performance gains of between 8 and 12% when moving from a 32-bit to a 64-bit environment. Mac users must wait because Adobe only found out at last year's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) that Apple had abandoned plans for a 64-bit Carbon framework, prompting a rethink of its 64-bit roadmap on the Mac.

Read John Nack's blog for Adobe's explanation of its roadmap changes.