Neural filter running very slow on Macbook Air

[ultrachrome]

We've been trying to set up a person working at home to do some Photoshop editing. We bought her a Macbook Air M1 with 16gb of ram. When we run the photo restoration neural filter on that unit, it's taking almost a full minute to get results.

On our iMac Retina 5K 2017 16 gb at a differeent location, the same procedure on the same photo is taking about 10 seconds to do the same

On our PC i7 with 64 gb of ram it's taking 2 or 3 seconds.

The only other difference is at her locations she has an internet connection with 20 up and 1.8 down. At our location we have 40 up and 4 down. Is this where the problem is? If so, would half the internet speed equal 6 times the time to process an image?

Any insight would be appreciated. 

[kevin stohlmeyer · Accepted solution]

Hi @ultrachrome internet connection speeds will definitely affect Neural Filters, specifically because they are cloud based. 20/40 up is pretty slow and 1.8/4 down is broken IMO.

With speeds like this I would expect some pretty significant lags in cloud processing related to the size of the image.

[ultrachrome]

Thanks Kevin...that's really helpful. Fortunately, our rural communities are getting fibre sometime this summer which will have far far faster speeds. We'll be getting a 300 up down connection.

[ultrachrome]

We just figured out its not the internet connection. It's just that the Macbook Air is comparitively slow to our other computers. We brought it into the same location as our other computers and hooked it to the same internet connection. On a test picture, my computer ran the "photo restoration" filter in 8 seconds and the Macbook Air in 37 seconds. It's just a slow computer. Disappointing for a 1600 dollar computer.

[Conrad C]

Something is very very wrong here, those reported times are completely inconsistent with what the Mac user base is getting in general. The Apple Silicon Macs are widely known to be significantly faster than Intel Macs at most things, especially features that use machine learning such as Neural Filters. Just for Photoshop in general, when the M1 was first introduced Adobe said Photoshop was running 50% faster on the M1.

I opened a scan of a damaged old print on both a 2018 Intel MacBook Pro (newer than your iMac), and a 2020 M1 Pro MacBook Pro (a little better than the M1 MacBook Air, but not by all that much). I ran Photo Restoration in Photoshop 24.4.1 three times on both Macs. On this image:

The Intel MacBook Pro averaged around 13 seconds.

The M1 MacBook Pro averaged 5 seconds.

Internet speed should not be a factor because both these Macs are on the same connection, and also because Neural Filters indicated that it was using on-device processing for this task, not cloud processing.

The big time difference I got in favor of the M1 is quite consistent with Intel Mac vs M1 Mac tests you will find all over the web and YouTube, across many different tasks and applications. The M1 usually blows the Intel Mac out of the water. It is exceedingly difficult to find a test where an Intel Mac beats a comparable M1 Mac. (It’s been done, but only using very special edge cases.) That is why I think something is not quite right with that M1 MacBook Air.

Assuming the MacBook Air doesn’t have any hardware defects, one question I’ll ask is: Do you know how Photoshop was installed on the M1 MacBook Air? Was Apple Migration Assistant used to copy Photoshop to the new M1 Mac from the old Mac, or was Photoshop installed fresh from the Creative Cloud desktop app? If it was installed from the Creative Cloud app, can you confirm that it is being started in Apple Silicon native mode, and not using the Rosetta translation layer?

Because the M1 should be consistently faster than a 2017 Intel Mac, and it should be by a wide margin, much closer to the time you get on your PC. Don’t be too quick to dismiss the M1, it sounds more like there is some configuration troubleshooting to do here.

[ultrachrome]

Thanks for the very thoughtful answer Conrad. Photoshop was installed from Adobe online and not migrated from an old computer. It is entirely up to date. Maybe we just got a dud computer. Seems to run other Photoshop stuff okay though. I'm going to try the system reset as NB, Colormanagement suggests. 

[Trevor.Dennis]

Kevin, FTI I live in rural New Zealand and the best connection available to me is VDSL2.  That gives me 70/12 and the Neural filters are more than aceptably fast for me.  

[NB, colourmanagement net]

If you still have the issue - Perhaps try a thorough reset of Photoshop preferences? 

(read this entire post before acting please)

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

Manually removing preferences files is the most complete method for restoring Photoshop to its default state: 

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

Manually removing preferences files is the most complete method for restoring Photoshop to its default state. This method ensures all preferences and any user presets which may be causing a problem are not loaded.

1. Quit Photoshop.
   
   
2. Navigate to Photoshop's Preferences folder.
   macOS: Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings
   Windows: Users/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop [version]/Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings
   
    
   Note: The user Library folder is hidden by default on macOS. To access files in the hidden user Library folder, see How to access hidden user library files.
3. Drag the entire Adobe Photoshop [Version] Settings folder to the desktop or somewhere safe for a back-up of your settings
   
   
4. Open Photoshop.
   
    New preferences files will be created in their original location.
   

Note re macOS: The user Library folder is hidden by default.

To access files in the hidden user Library folder, see here for how to access hidden user library files. 

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/access-hidden-user-library-files.html

Unexpected behaviour may indicate damaged preferences. Restoring preferences to their default settings is a good idea when trying to troubleshoot unexpected behaviours in Photoshop. check out the video

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

Learn how to access and modify Photoshop preferences and customise per your frequent workflows

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

And here’s an earlier forum discussion as an aid to understanding

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

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

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

Before you reset your preferences

in case of future issues, I suggest you make a copy as Adobe may need one to check problematic references. 

Quit Photoshop.
Go to Photoshop's Preferences folder

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

  [on MacOS see: Users/[user name]/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings

  Note for those on macOS: - be aware that the user Library folder is hidden by default on macOS. 

  https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/access-hidden-user-library-files.html

  In the Finder, open the “Go” menu whilst holding down the Option (Alt) key. 

  Library will now appear in the list - below the current user's “home” directory. ]

Now you can drag the entire Adobe Photoshop [Version] Settings folder to the desktop or somewhere safe as a back-up of your settings.

Note for those on macOS:

Preference preservation is affected by macOS permissions, 

you’ll need to allow Photoshop ‘Full Disk Access’ in your Mac OS Preferences/Security and Privacy

If that doesn't fix the issue:

Go to Preferences > Performance... and uncheck Multithreaded Compositing - and restart Photoshop.

Still hanging? 

Go to Preferences > Performance... click Advanced Settings... and uncheck "GPU Compositing" - then restart Photoshop. 

Still got problems?

It may even be time to reinstall Photoshop. 

It’s recommended that you use the Adobe CC cleaner tool to remove all traces first. 

(See above about preserving preferences though! It’s worth preserving them unless they are corrupted.)

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

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