Adobe Photoshop Product Manager revealed that the Creative Suite 4 applications are Mac OS X 10.6 compatible on Wednesday, but added a warning that the company hasn't tested the older Creative Suite 3 apps to ensure they won't have any problems.

According to an Adobe FAQ (PDF), "Older versions of Adobe creative software were not included in our testing efforts. While older Adobe and Macromedia applications may install and run on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6), they were designed, tested, and released to the public several years before this new operating system became available. You may therefore experience a variety of installation, stability, and reliability issues for which there is no resolution. Older versions of our creative software will not be updated to support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6)."

In other words, CS3 users are on their own if they upgrade to Mac OS X 10.6. That doesn't, however, mean that the Creative Suite 3 apps don't work under Mac OS X 10.6. The Mac Observer's initial tests, for example, seem to indicate that at least Photoshop CS3 performs as expected with Snow Leopard.

The company's Creative Suite 4 apps, including Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver, are Snow Leopard-ready. "At this time, none of the Adobe Creative Suite 4 products and components requires updates to be compatible with Mac OS X Snow Leopard," the company said.

Mr. Nack, however, elaborated on Adobe's comments by adding that there are some Snow Leopard compatibility issues. "As for CS4, everything is good with the exception of auto-updates to Flash panels, and Adobe Drive/Version Cue which doesn't work at the moment," he said.

While Adobe's announcement is good news for Creative Suite 4 users planning on installing Mac OS X 10.6, CS3 users likely won't be so happy and may want to consider holding off before upgrading to see if any critical issues surface.

Mac OS X 10.6, or Snow Leopard, is scheduled to be released on Friday, August 28. Be sure to check with The Mac Observer for reports on Snow Leopard compatibility issues.