Patterns and Layer styles cause Photoshop to slow to a crawl on a high-end machine
I have a Dell XPS 15 with 64GB ram, 2TB SSD and Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650. I run multi-GB files in Photoshop all the time with no issue. I noticed several years ago that when working on rendered plans that use fill layers with layer styles applied - particularly patterns - that Photoshop slows down immensely. This actually caused me to change my workflow so I would be able to minimize this issue by avoiding using patterns in my work.
I'm currently doing work for a client and their graphic standard requires the use of fill layers with pattern overlays. I have created a video to show the difference between working in two files open at the same time, same machine, with same performance settings applied. The file with pattern layer styles - a modest 295MB - is incredibly slow, taking abnormal amounts of time to zoom, pan, move, change blend mode, opacity, apply new settings, etc. The other file - with 1.65GB, zooms in and out easily, pans normally and is able to be edited, altered and changed with no lags.
See video:
There is obviously a major bug in using pattern overlays. I created each of the patterns myself and each individual pattern tile is less than 1mb, often between 100 - 500KB. I am unable to rasterize the layers due to the firm's graphic standards which require all the layers to be fully editable for team collaborations. Please advise on an update or bug fix ASAP. And if you watch the video, you'll see exactly what performance settings I have.
AdChoices