Adobe Photoshop CC slower than CS5

[Jammer Jammer]

I finally gave up  and went with the subscription model of Photoshop.  I have the latest version.  I'm finding in certain instances that it is actually slower than my CS5.  A for instance is I was just doing a smart sharpen and when I clicked OK, it took a second or two for it to render.  I have never seen that on CS5.  It's always been instantaneous.  I know in general, I've noticed this several times.  I just don't remember exactly what the scenarios were.

Anybody else wait this long to jump on board the latest version and notice that some things are slower?  I certainly wasn't expecting this from the latest and greatest.

[Derek Cross]

Which CC version of Photoshop and OS?
How much RAM and spare hard disk capacity do you have?
Have you tried resetting the Photoshop preferences, which you can do under the General tab in Photoshop preferences?

[Typhonart]

Get used to the downgrades. Each new version is just slower, and works worse. CS6 was a peak in performance, and it's only downhill from there :d For me even the brushes don't work as they used to. 

[Derek Cross]

That's not my experience – newer versions of Photoshop need more powerful systems, so if your computer is not up to spec, processing time may be longer.

[Typhonart]

 I think 12 cores, 2080TI and 32 gb ram and everything installed on SSD + 2TB scratch disks should be enough to run PS smoothly. Turns out a file that is 13000x6500 px (that I tested on old laptop, CS6 with GTX760M and 16gb of ram with no SSD), was running without much hiccups. 
In the current build I have to restart the file every 5-15 minutes, due to the canvas freezing, or ungodly slow brush performance (even a circle). 

[Derek Cross]

Have you tried resetting the Photoshop preferences, which you can do under the General tab in Photoshop preferences?

[Typhonart]

Yup, done all that many times, reinstalled the program many times. For digital painting PS is getting worse and worse with each update. Or even the symmetry, just try using the double axis symmetry, and you can just go on a walk, before it processes the brush strokes 😛 

[TheDigitalDog]

More and more functionality is moving to the GPU so that's a key area to examine. Maybe a newer video card, update of drivers; but GPU is being used far, far more than your older version(s).

[whcressall]

AMD Rizen 9, GTX 3080 64GB Ram 2TB M2 system Drive here. Same issues. This isn't a spec/GPU issue. I render 3D animation and texture paint in 3D with almost no lag. Something in Photoshop is definately pulling the suite down.

[whcressall]

Should read: AMD Rizen 9, RTX 3080 64GB Ram 2TB M2 system Drive here. Same issues.

[davescm]

Not my experience here either. I use PS every day and I've never had a freeze on the current version (v23).

My main system has 256GB RAM , i9-10920x processor and RTX3080 GPU and scratch on NVMe drive. But my second system has 64GB RAM, i7-3920K and RTX2080Ti with scratch on SSD.  Both work well with Photoshop (the larger system was built for 3D work with other applications). Note - all saving is to local drives - no network drives involved.

@Typhonart Are you using Studio drivers for the NVidia card? If not, give them a try, and when updating use Advanced options, Clean Install. I do not install the NVidia Geforce experience bloatware.

Dave

[Typhonart]

Yeah, I have everything updated, and I have been using Studio Drivers for a long time. It does not help with the fact, that the brushes are just constantly lagging, without any apparent reason.

For well over past 2-3 years, PS performance was more and more dissapointing, and it's not comming only from me. Vast majority of a friends of mine also share the same feelings, a lot of them switched permanently to Procreate and Ipad for digital painting, due to the poor brush performance. I could understand it has to do something with my setup, but it's too common of a problem, to be only me 😛 

[Jammer Jammer]

Thanks for all of your comments.  Most of them are very disappointing.

I have attached a screen grab of my PC specs.  I had asked if I needed anything new for the new Photoshop and based on recommendations, you can see the new GPU I got at the bottom of the list.  I also got 16 more GB of ram but there was a problem installing it so that hasn't happened yet.

I havne't had any freezes or anything like that, I'm just noticing some things that used to happen instantaneously are now taking a second or two.  Does seem like much but it's a second or two in the wrong direction.

[Jammer Jammer]

Sorry for the typos and accidentally marking my post as the correct answer.  I don't see anywhere to edit a post?

[whcressall]

Same experience here.

AMD Rizen 9 5900x GTX 3080 64GM ram 2TB M2 system drive 2TB storage/scratch problems started with Photoshop 2020, slower than anything I've ever used. 2021 slower than that updated photoshop again yesterday and the hand tool THE HAND TOOL laggs, stutters and freezes. Not all tools lag but brush sensativity wavers and performance is generally poor.

What is going on?

I maintain six systems : 3 Windows 10 and three OSX including two full Mack Pros (2012 ans 2015) and one Macbook pro 2017). All suffer under photoshop. They burn through After Effects, Blender, Premiere and Illustraitor without effort. Photoshop drags them ALL down.

What is going on?

[whcressall]

Should read: AMD Rizen 9 5900x RTX 3080 64GBM ram 2TB M2 system drive 2TB storage/scratch

[Coleview]

I've had an issue too where I'm using the eraser, start paining with it and as soon as I start the cursor lags behind and chages to a loading icon.
I'm on a Intel i7 imac with 16GB of ram and 4gb of vid ram. Not something I should see from Photoshop.

[Jammer Jammer]

OK, this is ABSURD !  I was just now working on an image that had nothing but text in it.  All I was doing was moving some of the text around and I got a freakin' FROZEN SCREEN.  I NEVER got a frozen screen with CS5 and I mean never.  SOOOOO disappointed !!!!

[NB, colourmanagement · Accepted solution]

It seems that, as time passses, all applications become more power hungry,

more RAM is used, more disc access [virtual memory paging] makes an SSD a necessity.

However - Just to be sure, 

Perhaps try resetting Photoshop preferences again?

Resetting restores Photoshop's internal preferences, which are saved when Photoshop closes. If they become corrupt then various issues can occur.

Here’s some info on how to do that:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html

And

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/quick-tips-how-to-reset-photoshop-pre...

You may want to backup your settings and your custom presets, brushes & actions before restoring Photoshop's preferences.

Here is general info that:  https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html#BackupPhotoshoppreferences

Also take a look at the following article and check if that helps: 

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/printing-color-management-photoshop1.html

Preferences file location: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/preference-file-names-locations-photoshop.html

It may even be time to reinstall Photoshop.

Its recommended that you use the Adobe CC cleaner tool to remove all traces first.

Uninstall Photoshop BUT make sure to choose the option “Yes, remove app preference”.

Once that process finishes, start the installation process and look into the “Advanced Options”. Uncheck “Import previous settings and preferences” and choose to “Remove old versions”.

I hope this helps

neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer

google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

[Jammer Jammer]

Thank you very much for all of those useful links.  I have bookmarked them.  If I end up with problems on a regular basis, I will refer back to them.

[NB, colourmanagement]

Hi

thx for the "correct" but I'm 

wondering if your issues are improved by that advice?

thx

Neil Barstow

colormanagement

[Typhonart]

I removed everything with the Adobe Cleaner, reinstalled all software, updated all drivers aaaand... it does work slightly better, but still the canvas froze on me several times after switching between move and zoom d:

[jordanz94682335]

In my experience, performance issues like these often have to do with hardware acceleration. Don't get me wrong, hardware acceleration has its perks,. but modern versions of Photoshop are far more dependant on the GPU than back in the Creative Suite days,. so an issue with the GPU (an underpowered card, not enough VRAM, or a driver that Photoshop just doesn't get along with) can make it feel far less snappy and responsive than was once the default even without a discrete GPU of any kind. CS2 ran beautifully on every Pentium 3/4 family computer I ever ran it on whether it was running an 8600 GT (not one of Nvidia's finest lol).

On Windows, there's also always the possibility that Windows Update will replace your manually installed GPU drivers with either a generic or outdated driver, which sometimes makes itself known immediately when your maximum resolution will suddenly go from your modern 1080p, 4k, etc., down to 800x600 or 1024x768, but in other cases where it doesn't cause an immediate and noticeable new problem, you may not even know anything's happened at all, and later on when you launch a 3D game, or a GPU heavy application like Photoshop CC, you'll get far poorer performance than you paid for.

I'd recommend eliminating that variable first before running out to get a new card*. Learn how to set a group policy to prevent Update from downloading/installing drivers for hardware matching your GPU's hardware ID. Step 1: temporarily pause Windows Update; 2: install latest known-good driver from manufacturer, 3. set up afformentioned group policy; 4: unpause Update and get back to work.

*If you regularly work with large (e.g. print resolution, large file size) and complicated (e.g. lots of layers, vectors, smart objects, etc.) then you may very well benefit from a higher-end card either way.

[Typhonart]

A bit outdated topic, but it ended up purely being a faulty PS update, and thats all there were to it 😛 For digital painting PS is at best OK, so most likely it's a very specific "nieche" that only entire industry experiences (even though free programs like Krita have 10x better brush engine, but lacks some of more complex tools). 

Other than that, 750W psu, then RTX2080n now RTX3060Ti, 64 gb of ram and i TB of free space on C etc should be more than enough to handle everything PS has to offer. Yet for example for the past 10 years using a big mixer  brush tool still works like **** on every single machine I have ever tried, and god forbid using big smudge brush (not a case on Macs tho for some reason). 

[Jammer Jammer]

I'm not much of a computer wiz so for now, I'm going to leave well enough alone.  If I end up with a lot of freezes or slowness, I'll get brave enough to try your fixes.