Participating Frequently

Question

Photoshop shape tool slow and laggy

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
September 28, 2023
3 replies
1078 views

I have had this bug for what feels like years now. Every new version has the same issue, and resetting prefs, cache settings, turning off or on the native canvas, nothing solves it. Interestingly it isn't present in the beta version of 2024 which is otherwise laggy in other areas.
I feel like photoshop is getting less responsive with every version, but this bug in particular is damaging to the creative process and my soul xD
Any time I click on the shape section tool and try to select a box or a circle, I get 2 or 3 seconds of delay before it responds. In 2024's main version, I get the lag even swapping the tool.
One way to fix it, is to grab one vert, and arrow key it left, then right. This turns it to a custom shape, and the issue goes away.
In the beta its the fastest it has been for years, but is otherwise laggy.
Has anyone actually solved this issue?

i7 9600k
64 GB DDR4

2070 RTX
Windows 10

Windows

This topic has been closed for replies.

J

Jerome32150010lzxg

Participant

I have the same problem. And this is frustrating. I can't work properly. Is there any way to get this fixed?

MacBook Pro

Apple M1 Max

64 GB

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

It's interesting thhat the issue appears to be cross platform, as this sort of issue tends to be either Mac or Windows.

I've had look round and found lots of threads reporting the issue, with the Custom Shape tool figuring in a lot of those threads. Just a thought, but how long dos Photoshop take to open? If it takes longer than you'd expect, whatch the splash screen as it shows each item as it is loaded, and see if it stalls anywhere? We are obviously looking for shape files.

I have never had an issue with any of the shape tools with my current Windows 11 system and previous two Windows 10 systems. It is definitely not a Mac only issue as wee have seen from this thread.

Workarounds that may, or may not help — as seen in threads going back several years — include resetting Preferences, limiting the Camera RAW cache size. and that's all I can find.

How many custom shape groups do you guys have? What happens if you delete every single one of them, and reload just one? You can reload them from the drop down menu.

I'm sorry I can't be of more help, and looking back at the old threads I have responded in some of them, and my buddy Dave, who is a Photoshop genius, has responded in others and we are not homing in on what is causing your problems. We both use Windows and high end workstations, but some of system specs we've seen should easily cope with all Photoshop tools without the excessive lag a lot of people are apparently suffering.

A Reddit post reporting severe lag

M

Meh5FC1Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks for replying
Resetting the tool did help a bit actually. It's taken it from 3-4 second delay to around 1 second.

Trevor.Dennis

Community Expert

All the way through your post I was thinking that your system was old and not up to the job, but that spec you listed should do fine with Photoshop. Out of interest, Open Task Manage and Performance Manager and see what your CPU clock speed is when performing tasks you say are lagging?

I'm out of touch with processors, but I do remember the i7-8700K being faster for Photoshop than some much more powerful processors because of its clock speed. That's from data published by Puget Systems. Google tells me that your CPU is up to 4.6Ghz, but IME processors don't run flat out with Photoshop.

Any time I click on the shape section tool and try to select a box or a circle, I get 2 or 3 seconds of delay before it responds. In 2024's main version, I get the lag even swapping the tool.
By @Meh5FC1

If you have the screen space, use the Performance Monitor to see if you can see a bottleneck. It's not going to be GPU, but it 'might' be maxing out your CPU. My gut says not though. Have a close look at disk activity, but check to see what size Photoshop Temp file(s) you have in the boot directory of your primary Scratch drive. From the rest of your spec, I suspect that at the very least that is an SSD, and more likely, and NVMe drive. So let us know what that drive is and how much free space it has.

If there are not hardware bottlenecks, then we can look elsewhere.

FYI I have

i9-13900K

RTX4080

64Gb RAM

Scratch is on a nearly empty 2Tb 960 PRO

Windows 11

And nothing ever remotely feels like it is lagging.

mglush

Community Expert

Could it be a problem that 2024 and 2024 beta are both installed? I would have recommended to delete the beta, but not after hearing that it is one that is working.

Michelle

M

Meh5FC1Author

Participating Frequently

This issue has been present on the last 5 or 6 versions for me amd others,
even when they are the first programs installed on a fresh copy of windows.

It's a well established issue that often crops up on this forum, but I
wanted to flag that 'it doesnt occur on the beta', as thats a good way to
find the issue.

mglush

Community Expert

Hi!

We are sorry that this has been an ongoing issue for you. Just to clarify are you using 2024 beta or are you using some other version of Photoshop?

Michelle

M

Meh5FC1Author

Participating Frequently

I am currently using 2015, 2023 2024 and 2024 beta.

The issue is present in all versions for me other than 2015 and the 2024
beta. It has occured across mutliple machines (my old pc, this one, plus my
work pc), on fresh windows installs too.
As I say, its fine once the shape is no longer a 'live shape' by moving one
of the verts one pixel and then back again.
I suspect its the live shape properties/control points doing it. Even
selecting the layer with the standard move tool causes lag, in fact
selecting the layer itself does also.
Very strange.
Thanks

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