Photoshop Hogging RAM Even With No Files Open?

How much do you have it set at? Don't go over 70%.

Ok. The initial screenshot I took was after a browser tab crashed due to running out of memory. So yes it definitely causes problems. Looking at this there is something else odd going on. I actually have 32GB of memory which doesn't add up when you look at the processes tab. However the performance tab shows the amount of memory actually being used which is much larger but it doesn't show where it is being used.

For now I am going to limit the amount of RAM that Photoshop can use and see if that helps.

Photoshop does not release memory when you close a file. It is reused and recycled for the next file.

So if you've had files open, this is normal.

This is by design, and what makes things like batch processing possible. Requesting memory from the OS for every file is slow and impractical.

I don't see anything out of the ordinary in the screenshot you posted. Does it ever hit the ceiling and max out close to 100%? That's more of a concern.

14GB is normal if there are documents or a large document open in Photoshop but there aren't any. Currently Photoshop is using 12 GB and again has no documents open. I don't believe it is GPU memory and even if it was why would it still be used when there are not documents open?

Post screenshots of the memory graphs from task manager when this happens. Include both the system memory and the gpu memory.

14 GB isn't out of the ordinary - but 97% certainly is. That's not normal. I'm trying to figure out if this could be memory used by the GPU, executing Photoshop tasks.