I just checked on my Windows system here...  To simply open Photoshop on my Windows development system I see that in my TEMP folder (which happens to be on my drive D) I have a new Photoshop Temp44447174392 file that occupies 1.4 GB of storage space.  When I create a 1920 x 1080 pixel document at 120 pixels per inch I see that the size of that scratch disk allocation hasn't changed. Are you SURE you're creating your document at 1920 x 1080 pixels and not inches? -Noel ... View more

Hi Kelly, this old thread was created for Photoshop 2020...  Could you please create a new thread to cover your issues with Photoshop 2021?  The original problem has been resolved, so what you're seeing may be an entirely new problem. Thanks. -Noel Carboni ... View more

Thanks for the information, damon_bell, we have reproduced the problem in-house and are looking into it. ... View more

Hi Elmar, I'm sorry you're having a problem.  Can you please let us know a little more about your working environment?  Please confirm PC vs. Mac, and let us know some detail on the image you're working with (e.g., pixel dimensions, bit depth, how complex the selection is, etc.). Unfortunately, I cannot reproduce what you are seeing.  With a number of Magic Wand selections on a big, multilayer 64 megapixel image I'm not seeing the scratch usage grow appreciably. Lastly - and I hate to parrot this but it helps just often enough that it's worth suggesting - could you please try making note of any custom preferences you have set then resetting your preferences (there's a [Reset Preferences On Quit] button for this in the General preferences panel).  Try the same operation again after restarting Photoshop. Thanks. -Noel Carboni  Adobe QE Developer ... View more

Version 21.0.2 should be available to you shortly and contains our changes to correct the excessive scratch space usage issues with Legacy Compositing disabled. I'd like to know whether the changes have resolved all the issues listed here.  If you still have document size issues with 21.0.2, please follow up by eMailing me at carboni @ adobe . com (no spaces).  I want to make sure we get this right. Thanks! -Noel ... View more

Hi Jon, make SURE you quit Photoshop after making that Legacy Compositing change and start it again. Please rest assured we'll be delivering a real fix to this issue soon. -Noel ... View more

Thanks for letting us know the workaround was effective.  Please rest assured we're working a real fix for the issue. As far as "if it ain't broken, don't fix it" goes in general...  I'm afraid we can't always comply; there's a real need for us to move our architecture forward. As an analogy, you may choose keep your car for a long time, put on new tires, maintain parts that wear, even paint it...  Great!  It continues to do what it did.  But now and again you may crave a new model because new ones have an updated engine design under the hood to give you capabilities you did not have before. In similar fashion, we need to update our underlying compositing engine design in order to be able to deliver new features and take advantage of modern computer hardware, not to mention run on new platforms.  You may not see the advantages of our new compositing engine in obvious ways just yet, but you will. Thanks again and as always for your understanding and patience - and especially for your help identifying problems like this one - as we strive to improve one of the most complex pieces of software on the planet.  🙂 -Noel Carboni  Adobe QE Developer ... View more

Update: We have identified a workaround that has little downside and should allow you to use Photoshop 2020 for your big projects without blowing out your scratch space: Go into Preferences > Performance and check the [ ] Legacy Compositing setting, then Quit and restart Photoshop. Please let me know here if you continue to have any issues with scratch file sizes after doing the above. Thanks! -Noel Carboni  Adobe QE Developer ... View more

Thank you everyone and especially Phillip and Greg. We have received a file with which we can reproduce the issue where we are seeing more than 10x additional scratch data stored from Photoshop 2020 than with Photoshop CC 2019.  We're actively looking into it. -Noel Carboni  Adobe QE Developer ... View more

I apologize for this being a bit of review and/or not applicable for some, but we need to separate expected scratch space use from that which is unexpected.  Certainly some of you have already compared scratch space use in Photoshop 2020 against its predecessor and are reporting an increase in disk usage.  I'm concerned that configuration options may be changed / reset between versions, or that documents have changed leading to different results. A bit of background on our architecture: When working with large files, Photoshop will make an entire RAM copy of all the data associated with your document for each new History/Undo Step created.  This is optimized for speed, not space efficiency, as we imagine you don't want to wait for your History/Undo Steps to be saved. Once a sequence of History/Undo Steps have filled your available system RAM, Photoshop must write the data to a scratch file, via our own memory management subsystem.  In fact it plans ahead and does this pre-emptively.  Again, this process is managed with an eye toward speed optimization, so large blocks of disk storage can be expected to be allocated at once. The important takeaway from the above is this:  Your History/Undo Steps will be at least as large as the RAM your document uses in memory, which is affected by pixel width x height x channel depth and may multiply further depending on your use of layers.  If you're editing a document that takes 10 GB of RAM, then every step you perform that adds a state to your History panel will  use 10 more GB of RAM and ultimate disk space. You can see how this could add up in a hurry.  For example, 50 History States x a 10 GB document could chew through 500 GB of disk space in 50 operations. Things you can do to lower the use of RAM and scratch space are: 1.  Watch your History panel and determine how many History States you really need (i.e., how far back you want to be able to Undo).  If possible, configure your History States setting in your Preferences > Performance section to a smaller number.  If you're seeing a difference in the way Photoshop 2020 behaves vs. Photoshop CC 2019, bear in mind they don't use the same preferences and please check your HIstory States setting in both versions. 2.  This is of course not always possible but if you can, change some of your givens so that you're working with smaller documents.  This might mean using a lower ppi or channel depth, or collapsing some layers...  That said, I'm already convinced that many of you already know the above implicitly and are experiencing a new problem.  I really need to be able to reproduce it so that we can understand the conditions in which it is occurring, which will lead us to being able to fix any problems. I am still working to try to craft a document with which I can see a significant difference between the scratch space usage behavior Photoshop CC 2019 and Photoshop 2020, so if any of you can provide me such a document it would be extremely helpful in getting this issue resolved.  Again, my eMail is (squeeze out the spaces):  carboni@ adobe. com Thanks! -Noel Carboni  Adobe QE Developer ... View more

Juerg, thanks for adding your info here.  Would you (and others posting here) also be willing to eMail me?  carboni @adobe. com (no spaces). I have been working diligently to reproduce the problem but so far on our systems here I have been unable to do so.  Ideally, if I can find a reliably reproducible use case with one of your documents we should be able to get it fixed quite quickly. Thanks. -Noel Carboni  Adobe QE Developer ... View more

You're welcome, and thanks in return for providing more information. I'll try to make up some more complex documents to see if I can cause what you're seeing to happen here.  If I can't easily do so, would you be willing to continue our conversation via eMail, and possibly share a document with which we can try to understand what's going on? If so, my eMail is (please squeeze out the spaces) carboni@ adobe. com Thanks again! -Noel Carboni  Adobe QE Developer ... View more

Hi Greg, presuming you haven't already been contacted by and are working with someone from Adobe, I'd like to try to learn more about what you're seeing. I'm sure you already know that Photoshop keeps an entire copy of your document's working memory content for EACH new step stored in the History panel, and that is expected to grow.  The total scratch disk space used for such history states can be limited by configuring the History States setting in the Performance Preferences panel. We've tried generally to reproduce the issue you've stated here on several of our big Windows systems but beyond just what you'd expect by multiplying out the storage needed to keep the History states during editing we're not seeing runaway usage of scratch disks.  Presuming what you're reporting goes beyond multiplying width x height x depth x history states, can you describe what operations you're doing to cause an increasing number of scratch files to accumulate? Thanks! -Noel Carboni  Adobe QE Developer ... View more

-Noel ... View more

All good here, Trevor.  I watched it start the day at -8F and blow snow, though much of the day was sunny.  It's -19F now and still blowing.  They say tomorrow it's going to get cold.  Good day, night, and day to stay inside.  -Noel ... View more

Trevor.Dennis  wrote Noel, I've just seen this picture of you getting ready for the trip to work.   I guess you had to leave your main system back in Florida? Yeah, that's my laptop.  The old one that heats the room. I see winter has arrived at the station...  Better get the plow train warmed up. -Noel ... View more

Thanks folks. I won't be driving - or even walking - on lakes for quite a while, though the natives are already doing it.  @Jane-e, I'm nearest to Lake Superior, I believe though it is some hours away.  Lake Michigan is the next closest. My first inclination is to put a snowy scene outside the windows, Dave.  I'll follow up when I've done one.  I have been going bonkers lately capturing snowy scenes, since the snow is still so new to me.  The Minnesotans probably think I'm nuts.  Somehow the first line of footprints in a soft, white blanket call to me (to photograph them).  Hey, I even have some shots of cold steel rails. -Noel ... View more