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burgmann0
Participating Frequently
January 26, 2015

P: Performance problems iMac Retina 5k

  • January 26, 2015
  • 105 replies
  • 2043 views

I've been using the new imac retina, and i have enormous problems with the performance of Photoshop. If i for example use the selective color correction, this does not run smoothly. Other functions also work delayed. I noticed if i do not use Photoshop in full screen mode, everything goes back to normal. A friend used the predecessor model imac without 5k resolution, but has no problems. I suspect Photoshop has problems with the resolution of 5k. I hope Adobe fix this problems because Photoshop works slow and delayed, the performance is terrible. I bought the retina iMac 5k, since my previous mac is getting old and slow. But now is it so, that my new retina iMac, run equal slowly as my old iMac. Adobe please fix this problems, so i cannot work.

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105 replies

Participating Frequently
January 3, 2017
I have posted two new threads in this forum relevant to this issue.  One discusses the differences between PSE and Apple Photos and whether Photos is a possible alternative to PSE on Macs.  The other discusses my experience running the Windows version of PSE using a virtual machine (Windows 7) alongside Mac OS on a Mac.  Search for my name as submitter and you will find them.
Participating Frequently
December 13, 2016

1. What is 2015.5?

2. For my 5K iMac changing screen resolution and getting more memory didn't help the poor performance of PSE at all.  A workaround for the editor being unusable is to close the organizer while you are using the editor.  That works for me; although it is a clunky solution it does make the editor usable with normal performance.  When you close or save the edited file it does save correctly in the organizer.  Of course, you have to open up the organizer and find the photo so see that, but it's better than not being able to use the editor.  (The other major issues like not rendering full screen correctly and not printing more than one photo per page are still present, though.)

3. Within the next few weeks (waiting for Apple to update Sierra) I will be testing PSE on Sierra and also PSE running under Windows on a virtual machine with Sierra.  I'll post results here.

Inspiring
December 13, 2016
Weirdly- right after posting this I moved my resolution down to 2048 x 1152....and I seem to be having a smoother go of it in Photoshop....keeping my fingers crossed. 

Yes, it seems like other programs that would gobble up RAM were running at a close-to-normal rate before making this switch- I've been using a 3D modelling program with Parallels (SolidWorks) and a 3D rendering program (Keyshot) and both seem to work fine even though I know from experience that they hog a lot of RAM.

(I usually don't have those two programs open while I'm using PS, however to make sure it can do it's thing without competition)
Inspiring
December 13, 2016
Are other RAM intensive Applications running smooth at the same time? Like Logic X with a normal-bigger project in it? Actually my iMac 5K was very sensitive regarding the RAM it was using, at the end the only fix was to obtain the original Apple RAM, this solved all issues.
Inspiring
December 13, 2016
I'm running 2015.5 and have pretty bad lag issues......I tried some of the suggestions above by changing my screen resolution to non-retina and also running just PS in low-res, but it hasn't seemed to help. 

upgraded my computer to 32GB recently and I'm just sitting here waiting 2 whole seconds for each command to register with Photoshop. Awful.
Participant
December 13, 2016
problem still appears on my 5k iMac though someone said 2015.5 fixed the problem.
Inspiring
December 8, 2016
Just coming across this thread and wondered if I could resurrect it. Any fix for these Photoshop issues on Retina iMac???

Thank you. 
Participating Frequently
March 30, 2016

I appreciate Mr. Cox providing comments here, but after several comments over the last month detailing issues with Photoshop on 5K iMacs it is very disappointing to have the only reply from an Adobe employee chastise the commenters for talking about Lightroom.  The problems are obviously relevant to several Adobe products and we have yet to have a substantive or useful response from Adobe after well over a year of reporting problems.  We don't know if the most recent Photoshop products fix anything; we don't know if El Capitan from Apple fixes anything.  It's not Mr. Cox's fault, but that is not support.  And I again point out that there is no official way to submit problem reports to Adobe.  This is it.  This is what they tell us to do and we have done it.

Because I am a long-time and heavy user of photography software, I'm often asked by friends for recommendations.  I have stopped recommending Adobe products.  They have great features, but this level of non-support is just not acceptable any more.

Inspiring
March 20, 2016
This topic is about Photoshop. Please don't confuse it by adding your issues with Lightroom.   If you have issues with Lightroom, please post a separate topic.
Inspiring
March 20, 2016
Do you know some appropriate test you could recommend?