Participant

Runaway RAM usage.

Forum|Forum|1 day ago
July 7, 2026
1 reply
18 views

Photoshop 27.8.0's Remove tool leaks memory that isn't released between operations. On a 32GB system, opening three files via Lightroom and applying about four Remove passes drove RAM to full capacity and caused a complete system freeze, not just an app hang. The OS itself stopped responding, including Task Manager, and required a hard power off to recover. Afterward, GPU hardware acceleration was disabled in Photoshop's Performance preferences as a workaround, since the leak appears tied to GPU memory accumulating per Remove pass with no ceiling, meaning more installed RAM would only delay the crash rather than prevent it. Current testing with GPU acceleration off shows RAM around 20GB with two to three files open and no Remove passes yet, holding steady in a normal one gigabyte band rather than climbing, though a pre launch baseline reading is still needed to confirm whether 20GB is itself elevated or just the normal cost of having files open.

D Fosse

Community Expert

From time to time we get reports of excessive memory consumption, in various forms. In most of these cases, the users have reported back that a complete reset of preferences fixed it. So that’s always the first thing to try.

I’m travelling with just a light laptop so I can’t retest this right now - but not long ago I tested this exact thing, after a similar report of excessive memory usage with the Remove tool.

I covered a whole image corner to corner, twice over, with Remove tool strokes, and memory usage stayed dead stable throughout. No memory buildup. Obviously, it’s normal that memory quickly gets used up to the limit set in Preferences, but it stays put there.

Corrupt preferences usually look like application bugs. Preferences are rewritten on every application exit, and are vulnerable to corruption by irregular shutdowns/crashes

E

esheatoAuthor

Participant

Thanks for the pointer. Confirmed — a full preferences reset fixed it. Ran the same test that crashed the system before: 3-4 files open, heavy Remove tool and Gen Fill passes, GPU acceleration on. RAM held flat around 28GB under load instead of climbing to the 32GB ceiling and locking up like before. One odd note: RAM doesn't drop much per file close mid-session (stayed around 28GB with only 1 file open), but a full app exit clears it back to baseline every time, so it looks like cache retention rather than a leak. Thanks for pointing at prefs first — saved me from chasing GPU settings as the culprit.

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded