Photoshop 2020 running slow

I too, have just simply uninstalled and went back to 2019's version, which works just fine. If anyone has any suggestions on how to cancel a "subscription", yet keep the software or somehow perform a one-time purchase for 2018 or 2019... I don't see the point of paying a monthly/yearly subscription if I can't update to new versions.

I don't know if you have read my posts just above but do yourself a massive favor and just go back to Photoshop 2019. The lack of caring or incompetence that Adobe has shown is clear, they do not care about you, your issue, or their reputation.

Adding my two cents here for fellow users with Macs & external displays.

The latest CC 2020 21.2.0 update yesterday messed up my config once again and where I work we've battled with sluggish performance issues for some time.

With late 2014 Macbook Pros and 1920x1200px external displays via HDMI (MBP display open, not closed-clamshell), everything was running buttery smooth with CC 2018 and 2019. The issues with performance began when we upgraded to mid 2019 MBP's, 4K monitors via Thunderbolt 3 and CC 2020. Even with the 2014 MBP with Mojave + 8GB RAM, CC 2020 21.1.3 and the 1920x1200 external monitor, everything was running fine as long as these Photoshop performance settings were applied: Allocate around 80% memory, use the Intel Iris GPU with basic profile, use legacy compositing, not too many history states, cache levels at 8 (we deal with large files) and cache tile size as large as possible.

These same perf settings did not help with MBP 2019 (16GB RAM, 2.4GHz i5, Intel Iris 655 + macOS 10.14.6) when running with an external 4K monitor.

It seems that for us, the macOS scaling is the root issue. Running without external display and MBP's internal display reso at max, performance was fine.

We made the mistake of running the external 4K displays with Apple's scaling for a slightly bigger text - performance drops, unusable pen tool with paths, sluggish screen refresh when moving things, very slow panning & zooming, waiting for ages for save to web, and loads more...  (plus MBP heat issues, fans spinning loudly etc). The "default for display" resolution is not the native either, so same issues happened.

Now, how we got things running decently: Use the perf settings as above, and most importantly: external display with macOS display settings "scaled" and set to the max reso of the display.

Hope this helps some of you.

Good News!!! because misery loves company! I have been dealing with this for months while receiving complete and total disregard for answers from Adobe. Not only am I contracted to visual information for several large companies... I am on contract with a Medical Center for IT.. Let me tell you if I responded the way Adobe has I would rightly so get fired! 

Is it related to the Operating System? The performance issue was present in Mohave so I upgraded to Catalina (Logical yes?) Did it work? NO! In fact, it has gotten significantly worse.

Is it related to File size? Kind of,  but it appears to be a caching issue to me if I were to guess. The more the files are layered and modified the slower and SLLOOOOWWWER and SSSSSSLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWERRR it gets.

With 213,763 actual searches for "Photoshop is running slow"  search yields 6 million + but. As a significant problem, this is freaking huge.  

Example of a Monopoly were they give you crap and make you say it tastes good.

Maybe it is time for us all to dump it and try something new.

Here is my best advice until Adobe realizes they need to support their products.

https://www.creativebloq.com/photoshop/alternatives-1131641

That is 13 alternative rated programs to use instead of Photoshop.

Who knows maybe if enough of us leave they might actually fix something. BTW I have used Photoshop for 28 years. #time-to-quit-photoshop!

Well, that is my opinion with 138 replies to this and no real answers tell you how much Adobe cares.

Yep, just terrible LAG with Photoshop.  I have a killer computer and never had this issue before.  It takes an extra second to make selections or move something with the move tool.  It's TERRIBLE to say the list.  Can't work this way.  Please fix!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just figured I'd add another voice to this party and help bump this up. Over 6 month's and Photoshop CC 2020 is still running terrible. I had hoped the latest v21.1.3 would fix things but it has not. I've reinstalled it several times and nothing. 

My system is no slouch. Its Photoshop....

Windows 10 Pro 18363.836

Intel i7 9700KF 3.6Ghz

64 GB Ram

NVIDIA RTX 1080

Photoshop CC 2020 is plain horrible. It's a beast. This is my first time upgrading to Photoshop after years of using CS5 (an oldie but goodie) and I never had a problem loading layer-heavy files. Now I have to shut it down time after time just to make smallest of changes to my files. I can't cope, seriously. I've had Adobe Support checkout my set up out remotely about 3 times and they just gave up and installed 2018, which works a bit better, but is still much slower than all the older versions. Such a waste of money. So disappointed. Grrrr....

I just want to add my name to the list of users experiencing extremely slow hang ups.  First time purchasing a subscription to CC (Photoshop, Ligthroom, InDesign, and Bridge) and ALL of the apps are super slow.  Anybody else have other creative ecosystems to invest in?  I'm feeling like I got dupped here...

"Amazing features!"..."Bring your imagination to life!"...pay for service, install applications:  all duds.  WTF.

Stats:

MacOS Catalina

Macbook Pro (13-inch, mid 2012)

Processor:  2.9 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7

Memory:  8 GB 1600 Mhz DDR3

Graphics:  Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

This Photoshop 2020 is so damn buggy and slow, unbelievable.

Running it on a 2 year old AMD Threadripper (16 cores/32 threads), 32Gig RAM, Nvidia 1070Ti. 32" 4k Monitor. And it's slow as hell! And besides of that: Buggy as hell!

I really wonder if Adobe has kind of an QA department. It's unbelievable that such a buggy and slow version has made it to a final release version.

I rolled back to 2019 version and it's unbelievable how much faster it is! Also: Easy to spot bugs like rulers not visible, selections not working, the whole canvas gets messed up while paning (on large resolutions) should be at least the most important things to check for an QA department before release. Besides crashes while it's saving my work. Or should i say while it's NOT saving my work.

And why Adobe thinks it's a good idea to completely change 20 year old shortcuts comes on top of that.

So there can only be two reasons for that: There is no QA department at Adobe. OR (more likely): They are well aware of the problems the new Photoshop version has, but releasing it anyway...poooping on their customers, because they will get paid anyway every month. So they do not need to care anymore.

I have the same problem with PS 2020.
After 5 minutes of use PS becomes so slow a simple nudge operation (on a very small file with 2 layers) takes few minutes!!!
This is on PC with windows 10 32gb of ram and gtx 980.

Lucky for me I don't pay for this s**t because I get it from work, but unlucky for me I can not work with anything else because my company use Creaticve Cloud (why i don't know)

Adobe, I hate you and hope you go bankrupt
(to the actual devs I love you and hope yo will find a job if that happens)
To the Adobe corporate suites, if only I could write what I think of you (it's not good)
and I wish all kind of bad things.

And one last thing (I need to vent) Adobe you are killing your own company.
You think you will survive for ever? look at kodak lol, your end is near if you keep this s**t