'Available Space' drastically change when I open PS

[tridosha]

Hi, my snag is when I try to do anything simple little thing in Photoshop I get the error that my 'Scratch discs are full'.
It looked like I had about 24 GB of free space on a 500 GB drive so I spent a couple of happy hours moving big files to an external drive and had about 88 GB of free space but it didn't make any difference to the performance of Photoshop.
I tried adding an external drive an an additional scratch disc to no effect.

To day I downloaded a few videos, prob. not more than 2 GB and now when I check 'get info' for HD Macintosh it shows I have only 6.2 GB of available space.

Actually right after moving all those files I got a similar result but when I closed the 'get info' window and opened it again it showed 88 GB again. But today back to 6.2 GB
Photoshop still not able to play even though I have added another scratch disc with over 300 GB of spare space.

I ran 'repair disc' using First Aid from the recovery drive but it did not find any problem to repair and said the drive appears to be fine.

Incase it helps a few days ago it was hard to wake my Mac from sleep.

I had to hold the power button for over 5 secs about 6 times before it would wake.

Restarting fixed that but maybe there is some problem somewhere with use for the space.

Oh Wow while I was writing this the available space just went back to 81.28 GB when I closed Photoshop.

I was only trying to add text to a small image, couldn't possible take up so many GBs of space.

I just opened Photoshop again and the available space went down to 5.37 GB and it fluctuates a bit even though I don't do anything except type here.

Closed PS again and available space is up to 80.72 GB.
I have no problem editing a video in Screenflow with PS closed...

I have Mac Mini running 10. 13.6
500 GB drive. 2.5 GHz processor.

Any idea what is going on?
How to fix it so i can use PS?
I have the photographers CC plan and am up to date with Creative Cloud and PS.

plmk? Thanks.

[Test Screen Name]

What version of Photoshop? Please don’t say “latest” but check.

[tridosha]

Hi, thanks, I just updated to v20 and same thing happening.
as soon as I use the text took I loose over 60 GB of available hard drive space.

I just created a video screencast & I'll upload it to YT & link here tonight.

Thanks for any help!
Best wishes.

[tridosha]

Hi, I'm on PS 19.1.6
I'm just noticing there is an update.
With PS open I had about 5 GB of available space so I closed it and now have just over 74 GB of space.
I'll update PS to latest now.
I really need to get PS going, thanks for any help.
I tried purging my PS cache & got 1 GB back for a second but lost it again pretty quickly.
Thanks for help, not sure why I can't reply to who ever asked what PS version I'm running.

[tridosha]

Here's the screencast showing the available space on my Mac drop from about 74 GB to about 6 when I 1st use  the Text tool at 1min.15 secs : PS disc space prob - YouTube

Thanks for any help in being able to use the text tool.

It also happened one time when I tried to use the brush.

[tridosha]

Hello? Anyone there? Pls help
Thanks!

[Test Screen Name]

This sounds pretty normal. Many people set up an external disk for their Photoshop scratch space.

[tridosha]

But it doesn't help. It stops the error message about scratch disk space but I still can't use the text tool.
PS uses my hard drive space even though I have another scratch disc allocated.
And why does adding a text layer suddenly use about 60GBs of my hard drive space?

I would have thought updating to v20, whole new app might have helped but it didn't which makes me think just deleting PS and reinstalling won't help either.

I found if I open a PS doc that has a text layer I can edit it and duplicate it OK without loosing all that disc space but if i just click the text tool icon to add a new layer then I loose 60 GBs of space, I'm down to about 6GB available space on the text tool doesn't work.
I see the named layer in the layers palet but nothing shows on the main doc window.

any ideas?
thanks.

[Test Screen Name]

What is the size of your image in PIXELS (width and height, not mm or inches) as shown by Image Size?

[tridosha]

That image in the video is 1200 x 1200 px

Thanks!

J

[tridosha]

I got a warning that

Would this effect my available disc space ond the text tool?

probably not...

[mglush]

Are you able to update your display driver? If not, are you able to turn it off and then restart Photoshop? And, one more question--how much of your hard drive space are you allocating to PS in your preferences?

[tridosha]

Hi, I don't know about updating my display driver, I can Google it.
Also I can Google if I can turn it off.
Any tips on these?
I'm looking how much hard drive space I allocate to PS & I don't see that in my prefs.
only how much Raam. which is 5919 MB or 70%

this is under the 'Performance' tab in PS prefs.

Can you point me to which pref the hardrive space allocated is shown?
I looked at all my prefs in PS & I don't see any ref to hard drive allocation.

Thanks for you help

[mglush]

Sorry about the confusion--I was thinking of two things -- your scratch disk space and your Ram. Try taking your ram allocation dow to 50% instead of 70? And I believe you have already added more scratch disk space from an external hard drive, correct?

One other option to try is to see if turning of the Graphics Processor and then restarting PS corrects the issue. If it does then the Graphics processor might be the culprit.

Let me know if either one of those works.

Michelle

[tridosha]

Hi Michelle, thanks for the tips.

I took the Ram allocation down to 50%

& I do still have an added scratch disc with over 400 GBs space on it.

I created that 1200 x 1200 image again and clicked the text too,

I got the text layer but as soon as I clicked an insert point on the main window I got a spinning ball for a while then nothing.

If I click the bg. layer I see the Text layer is named with the text I type but it doesnt' show in my main doc window still and the available space went down to 6.78 GB as soon as I clicked the text insert point.

It looks like my Graphics processor is already turned off.
I think that's what that error about it must have meant.
I don't see a way to turn it back on... any tips on that?

plmk?
Thanks!

[Jeff Arola · Accepted solution]

I believe the cause of the ram issue is that the size of the document in the New dialog is set for 1200 inches x 1200 inches, when you probably meant to enter 1200 px x 1200 px.

[tridosha]

Oh that would be great!

Just opening PS again.

I don't get the space back until I close it.

Wow this would be a simple way round it if it works _
Thanks!

[tridosha]

Great! it worked, thanks so much!

I have no idea why it gave me that option with the inches.

I use that pixle size a lot.

Phew!

over a month of phutzing with trying to get round this
Thanks al lot Jeff!

Terrific!

[mglush]

Yay Jeff! Good catch!