Inspiring

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Painfully slow photoshop artboards (and a bit of history)

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I've been using photoshop since version 4.0 so a few years have passed.

Some time ago, I don't remember how long ago, Adobe introduced artboards - cool - a useful thing.

Unfortunately, artboards are probably the slowest and at the same time the most important(sic!) functionality of PS.

Before artboards were introduced, I used to create huge dimension files where I put all my projects on one canvas - very convenient, and most importantly super-fast.

Now for comparison a video of today's work with artboards (sorry for the blur)
I think most of you know the pain. youtube.com/watch?v=UOu7y6hnx_4
File recorded on a Macbook pro i7.
For the test I checked it on a maxed Apple silicon pro.
It runs ...minimally faster, still with massive lag.

The question is whether Adobe is going to do something about it?
It's not the cause of slow computers but low quality code.

Maybe a bit of an overstatement with this "low-quality code," but after reading 14 articles on AfterFX (below), the following are mentioned as the main reasons for slowness: programmers, cost, difficulty of programming, and backward compatibility. But definitely the ball is in adobe's court. Our monthly payments too....

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https://www.provideocoalition.com/after-effects-performance-part1-in-search-of-perfection/
By the way, I recommend a great series of articles on AFX and adobe.
You will find out from it why it is so slow....

M

mikesmull

Participant

I've been struggling with this for a long time as well. I am on MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB, Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB, 64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4. I work on very large artboards and adding, copying, moving them around used to be very fast. Now it is terrible. I have seen no fixes or changes to this.

Is this only a problem for Intel Macs? Does Adobe know that this is a problem? Is there any plan to address it? It is causing a great deal of trouble for me.

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ben j12831279

Participant

Art boards worked good on psd 2022, then i went to 2024, and that's when art boards became a problem. I never used 2023 version. Also, 2025's sucks too. I use 2022 as long as I could, but due to security software on my company's computer, it uninstalled it. I re-installed it, then the next day the software uninstalled it again. So i'm stuck with the 2024 or 2025 versions

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PSteier

Known Participant

Same here, they are getting slower and slower. Sometimes you only touch/select a artboard and the whole PS freezes or you're getting a loading bar for minutes. It's annoying. But it's clear where the focus of PS is going. Putting all AI stuff into it first, but improvising any of the main functions. Mostly destroying them with the updates and waiting for us Beta-Users to report the old-new bugs...

Shame on you, Adobe...

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Nate26766826xgl2

Participant

I've been using Photoshop since 4.0 as well hah.

Anyways wow yeah. Artboards seem to have actually gotten worse? Borderline unusable - even on a super powerful machine (4090 / 128 GB Mem etc). I only have 3 boards at 4k size and it takes upwards of 30 seconds to move items from one board to another.

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StackolaAuthor

Inspiring

Yes, this is sick, and of course adobe pretends not to know what is going on 🙂

And the Difference is clear - as in the example I gave.
10 years ago it was possible to work with a huge document without any problem.

Now with artboards it is impossible

What do you say to that @Stephen Marsh ? Have you determined whether “it is a bug or not” ?

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Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

What do you say to that @Stephen Marsh ? Have you determined whether “it is a bug or not” ?

By @Stackola

I'm just an end user, like you. I'm a forum volunteer, not an Adobe engineer or employee.

I see complaints, but no sample files or helpful details to attempt to replicate the issue.

I don't usually use artboards, and when I do they are not "huge" and there aren't "many" of them.

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StackolaAuthor

Inspiring

I'm not either, I didn't use them for a very long time, at some point I started,
and now I have the desire to throw my computer out the window.
Besides, I often get files with artboards, so I have no way out.

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Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

Before artboards were introduced, I used to create huge dimension files where I put all my projects on one canvas - very convenient, and most importantly super-fast.

By @Stackola

It still is one big canvas, the artboards are just special groups that provide a cropped "window/portal" to view/work in a specific area. Adobe didn't rewrite Photoshop to be a multi-page/canvas app, it still uses a single canvas.

Personally, I'm not a fan of them.

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jorge albertob79904233

Participating Frequently

The same bug with latest version (june 2024) with a i9 intel, 32 gb RAM Macbook Pro. Simply can not work with it.
Frustration is a kind word to describe this problem.

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Stephen Marsh

Community Expert

The same bug with latest version (june 2024) with a i9 intel, 32 gb RAM Macbook Pro. Simply can not work with it.
Frustration is a kind word to describe this problem.

By @jorge albertob79904233

It is yet to be determined if this is a bug or not.

What is the canvas size dimensions in pixels that contains all the artboards? What bits/channel depth?

Does a document at the same pixel dimensions and bit depth with the same layers (just no artboards) have the same performance issues?

This would help to determine if this is a bug relating to artboards as you would then be comparing apples to apples.

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