Participant

Question

Photoshop Elements 2025 frequently freezes when doing selections with the selection tool.

Forum|Forum|11 months ago
February 19, 2025
6 replies
1552 views

I've been using Photoshop Elements for years and upgrade every other year. I have been having a serious issue with 2025 freezing when I'm selecting areas with the selection tool. When the program freezes the only way out is to open task manager and tell it to kill the process. Unfortunately, this doesn't log the issue since it is technically not a "crash". I'm using Windows 11 on a Dell Precision 3660 with 32GM of RAM. I'm just trying to let Adobe know about the issue. I get around it by frequently saving my work in progress (when I remember) as this seems to help.

C

coyoteself

Participant

I have been using PSE since 2005 and the older versions never forze up. BUT PSE 2024 would freeze up occasionally and because of that and buying a new compter with more RAM, I recently upgraded to PSE 2025. BIG mistake!! It freezes a LOT more than the 2024 version ever did (4 times in two hours just today). To make maters even more aggravating I just saw that PSE 2026 is out.

WHY can't Photoshop correct th e freezing and why should I keep using PSE if PS refuses to fix a KNOWN problem and provide user with an up date? Until PS decideds to fix an obvious glitch in Elements, I'm done with it! Time to look for a a more "Reliable" photo editing platform

A

AlanMacallister

Participant

Having exactly same issues - it is either crashing or completely turning itself off regularly.

i upgraded recently from elements 14 to 2025 - elements 14 NEVER crashed and now its crashing 5-6 times a day and always when ive not saved in a while.

editing the same size files in same machine and nothing else has changed in my workflow so 100% the issue is that 2025 is somehow very unstable

M

Man in the Mazze

Participant

Same problem, in previous versions it crashed when making a selection with the polygon selection tool. In version 2025, it crashes once a day while using the eraser on a mask. At least crash all the way and create a recover files. This is garbage.

B

BonesBabi2024_RIP

Participant

My Elements 2025 continually freezes up - so far during cloning, layer selection, larger file, etc etc. On new MSI laptop - freezes at least 2 to 3 times a week on both computers upstairs & downstairs. Must just loose work - several "saves" as often as i need to does seem to save less quality for a week's work..... Just upgraded from Elements 2013 which NEVER crashed....

S

Susan36634780o0nf

Participant

I've been working with Adobe to fix crash issue while using the brush selection tool with masking. I have a MacBook Pro. Both the 2024 and 2025 versions are crashing and the more you use the tool the more likely it is to crash. I've spent over 6 hours on the phone with them trying to find the issue and they have no idea how to fix it. They offered to sell me the 2025 elements for $79 so that I could continue helping them with this known issue. I said no way was I spending more money on a product I already know is defective. I don't think they are taking this issue seriously. I've decided to look into alternatives.

B

billrowe2025

Participant

Same problem. I tried all the recommened solutions and the problem persists. Is Adobe looking into this problem? Maybe the fix needs to come from above. I've been a loyal Photoshop Elements guy since the begining and have never had a problem before. Maybe all the new stuff is getting ahead of the programs capability.

Greg_S.

Community Expert

@hackbod have you tried resetting preferences?

Y

YvesNYC

Participating Frequently

You don't have to. When PSE 2025 crashes you lose your preferences; and at resrat you have to set your prefence again. You also use the Recent files list.. Never happened in previous versions. This is a serious problem !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Piece of crap!

Greg_S.

Community Expert

How frequent is frequent?

Which selection tools are you using?

How large are the files you are editing?

How many layers?

Try resetting the preferences file. Go to the Edit>Preferences>General tab and click the Reset Preferences on next launch button.

Is your graphics driver up to date?

Do you use the Organizer? If so, how large is your catalog?

Are you using the Elements web to autosync your catalog files. I have found this to be a huge resource hog. Try turning autosync off in the Organizer's Edit>Preferences>Auto sync dialog.

J

JET_3Author

Participant

Hi Greg_S!

I'm sorry for the late reply. This was my first posting here and I didn't actually expect a response. I was just trying to let Adobe know about an issue. Let me try to answer your questions.

How frequent? - Before I started saving my work really frequently, I'd have the program lock up three or four times in a editing session. I learned to get around it by not selecting areas as often and, as I said, saving my work often.

Which selection tools? I primarily use the Quick Selection tool and fall back to the Selection Brush when it doesn't work well. My freezing issue was allways while using the Quick Selection tool, normally when zoomed in and trying to fine tune selecting an area.

File size? Typically less than 10MB. I usually edit JPG files that my wife shoots with her camera in Elements. I tend to shoot RAW files and typically edit them in Lightroom.

How many layers? I'm ashamed to say that even though I've used Elements since shortly after it first came out, I never really used any layers. I've just recently started to try to learn about them. With these, the most I would have had would have been three. The background, a copy of the background, and if I didn't have the program freeze, a layer with the selection.

I will try your suggestion about resetting the preferences file. I typically don't change anything there so it won't hurt me.

Graphics driver? I rely on Windows and Dell to tell me when to update the drivers. I always update them when they say to do so.

Organizer? I do not use Organizer. And do not use Elements web. I will go into Organizer and set Autosync to off though in case it is doing something on it's own.

I typically edit files in batches after we've been somewhere photogenic. I'm caught up for the time being so I won't really be doing a lot of edits for a while.

Thank you so much for your response! And again, I'm sorry that I didn't look back here since I didn't expect any feedback from Adobe.

H

hackbod

Participant

I've just been having the same problem. This happened to me once or twice in the past, but now I have a 5614x5614 image that I have been trying to create a complicated selection on and it the app has now frozen 3 times in a row while I was working on the selection. Most recently, I tried doing the selection on only the top third of the image first to try to avoid what may be a too complicated selection, but still it froze.

My computer has 32GB of RAM, and I am not seeing the app getting close to using my available RAM. And I turned off GPU acceleration a while ago because that was crashing the Remove Tool (but is fine now without it).

The selection I have been doing is using Magic Want to create the initial very complicated selection and then rectangle and remove to clean it up. Each of the 3 times it has frozen while I am in the process of doing a rectangle add/remove selection -- before I even release the mouse button to modify the existing selection.

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