Task Manager Shows That Not All RAM Is Used

Question

Hello!I recently upraded my laptop's RAM to 16GB because I'm working with pretty big files and there was a lot of lagging going on.I went into PS's preferences and increased the amount of RAM it could utilize. I then went to work on a file and there still was a lot of lag. While PS was still struggling to process my latest input, opening up Task Manager showed me that it was only using around 2GB of RAM even though I allocated way more. I do use the 64bit version, so that's not it. My laptop does recognize the newly installed RAM and runs just fine. I'm using Photoshop CC and Windows 10 by the way. Any idea why this is?

Conrad_C · Answer

“Lag” can be caused by a bottleneck in more than one part of the system, not just RAM. Lag can also be caused by:

Not enough CPU power (check Task Manager)
Not enough GPU power for tasks that can be GPU-accelerated
Slow storage, such as a hard drive instead of an SSD, especially if a hard drive is designated as a scratch disk
Conflicting software, such as badly written anti-malware software

Also, Photoshop will use as much RAM as it needs, but not more. So some other questions are:

How big are the files, in pixel width and height?
Are they 8 bits per channel, or 16?
Are they in RGB or CMYK color mode?
How many layers do they typically have?
Do they use a lot of Smart Objects?
In Image > Image Size, what is the Image Size shown at the top of the dialog box? (This is the uncompressed size.)

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