Photoshop 2020 running slow

[eheld]

My Adobe Photoshop auto-updated for me this morning (yay!) but as I have been using it throughout the day, it has started to lag. At this point I wasn't even able to make a selection without having to wait 10 minutes (approximately) before it was ready to move on to the next step. Is there a reason it's running so slow?

[BruceUK]

I rolled back to earlier versions and I was okay until recently as I decided to give the update another shot and hell it is dreadfully sluggish and crashes every now and then. A simple Export for 500 x 800 px image with 5 layers took 3 restart and 2 minutes wait for the user interface to appear.
As painful as it is to say, I started to check my other options for an image editor. There must be someone out there to come up with an alternative program. Look what DaVinci Resolve did with Adobe Premiere in a very short time.

Adobe! if you carry on taking this lightly, you're seriously risking loosing your users. 

PLEASE FIX YOUR PRODUCT

[JanineG.]

Hey there!

As mentioned before, I'd really post in the below, external, Photoshop community. The guy below, an Adobe employee, picked up the issue I and others posted in there, and it was eventually resolved.

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/people/dramenon

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshop-cc-2020-layer-brushes-and-swatches-...

Worth a shot!

Janine

[hdbrew]

Yep, just terrible LAG with Photoshop.  I have a killer computer and never had this issue before.  It takes an extra second to make selections or move something with the move tool.  It's TERRIBLE to say the list.  Can't work this way.  Please fix!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Me-too-Zee]

Good News!!! because misery loves company! I have been dealing with this for months while receiving complete and total disregard for answers from Adobe. Not only am I contracted to visual information for several large companies... I am on contract with a Medical Center for IT.. Let me tell you if I responded the way Adobe has I would rightly so get fired! 

Is it related to the Operating System? The performance issue was present in Mohave so I upgraded to Catalina (Logical yes?) Did it work? NO! In fact, it has gotten significantly worse.

Is it related to File size? Kind of,  but it appears to be a caching issue to me if I were to guess. The more the files are layered and modified the slower and SLLOOOOWWWER and SSSSSSLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWERRR it gets.

With 213,763 actual searches for "Photoshop is running slow"  search yields 6 million + but. As a significant problem, this is freaking huge.  

Example of a Monopoly were they give you crap and make you say it tastes good.

Maybe it is time for us all to dump it and try something new.

Here is my best advice until Adobe realizes they need to support their products.

https://www.creativebloq.com/photoshop/alternatives-1131641

That is 13 alternative rated programs to use instead of Photoshop.

Who knows maybe if enough of us leave they might actually fix something. BTW I have used Photoshop for 28 years. #time-to-quit-photoshop!

Well, that is my opinion with 138 replies to this and no real answers tell you how much Adobe cares.

[AW-UNAK685]

Right on! *Thanks* for your own DETAILED examples of Adobe's failure to
address this.

and MANY Thanks for the links to alternatives to PS and Adobe. Will
definitely look at them.

Hope folks keep adding to this thread so maybe one day Adobe will wake up.



--
*<<< Don't worry spiders, I keep house casually >>>*

* Issa (1763-1827)*

Abi Woodbridge e-mail: abiwoodbridge@gmail.com
PO Box 107 Unalaska, AK 99685 907-581-2535

[Me-too-Zee]

Here is the thing that makes this even more special. I wrote that and said "What the Heck... I will give support another call (masochism must be in my genetic code somewhere). So 1 hour and 28 minutes in the line up to talk to the Adobe guru to find out if the new update actually fixed the issue that ALL of us are having.  You know where this is going.

Add an additional 2 hours and 23 minutes, 4 dropped calls, 86 "can you please repeat that you are breaking up or your accent is too heavy for me to understand and I kid you not, 76 permissions changed to Read & Write along with 43 apologies.

Did it work? NO!

Then Arjun (my tech support guy)  had a momentary lapse of genius... and said to me..... I think you should go back to Photoshop 2019... @_@ <---- my bewildered expression to what would have saved me nearly 4 hours of excruciating pain of dealing with the massively incompetent which is clearly the new Adobe.

I hope you enjoyed my follow-up 

[Rockst2r]

Adding my two cents here for fellow users with Macs & external displays.

The latest CC 2020 21.2.0 update yesterday messed up my config once again and where I work we've battled with sluggish performance issues for some time.

With late 2014 Macbook Pros and 1920x1200px external displays via HDMI (MBP display open, not closed-clamshell), everything was running buttery smooth with CC 2018 and 2019. The issues with performance began when we upgraded to mid 2019 MBP's, 4K monitors via Thunderbolt 3 and CC 2020. Even with the 2014 MBP with Mojave + 8GB RAM, CC 2020 21.1.3 and the 1920x1200 external monitor, everything was running fine as long as these Photoshop performance settings were applied: Allocate around 80% memory, use the Intel Iris GPU with basic profile, use legacy compositing, not too many history states, cache levels at 8 (we deal with large files) and cache tile size as large as possible.

These same perf settings did not help with MBP 2019 (16GB RAM, 2.4GHz i5, Intel Iris 655 + macOS 10.14.6) when running with an external 4K monitor.

It seems that for us, the macOS scaling is the root issue. Running without external display and MBP's internal display reso at max, performance was fine.

We made the mistake of running the external 4K displays with Apple's scaling for a slightly bigger text - performance drops, unusable pen tool with paths, sluggish screen refresh when moving things, very slow panning & zooming, waiting for ages for save to web, and loads more...  (plus MBP heat issues, fans spinning loudly etc). The "default for display" resolution is not the native either, so same issues happened.

Now, how we got things running decently: Use the perf settings as above, and most importantly: external display with macOS display settings "scaled" and set to the max reso of the display.

Hope this helps some of you.

[Me-too-Zee]

I don't know if you have read my posts just above but do yourself a massive favor and just go back to Photoshop 2019. The lack of caring or incompetence that Adobe has shown is clear, they do not care about you, your issue, or their reputation.

[rickodelldesign]

I too, have just simply uninstalled and went back to 2019's version, which works just fine. If anyone has any suggestions on how to cancel a "subscription", yet keep the software or somehow perform a one-time purchase for 2018 or 2019... I don't see the point of paying a monthly/yearly subscription if I can't update to new versions.

[dmitryk2017]

Photoshop 2020 is really very bad and slow. i'm totally upset(. even bug on document creation, when you select some units (for example Pixels was set and changes to Cm) it's jumps back from time ti time to prvious units in selection box and you have to reselect unit again. 

Also mouse navigation to buttons has become very inconvenient. I think it is the result of overall PS slowness!

[mosemalti]

I thought I was the only one having these issues. My setup is a i9 cpu, 64g of ram, 1080ti with ssds and nvmes all setup for optimal speed but photoshop is sluggish. When I close or save a document is freezes for almost 30 seconds. I had a chat with cusotmer care and they are clueless, they just paste you a bunch of links to follow which is even more frustrating. If this is the future of adobe I will have to cancel my subscribtion and try to find an old second hand version and work with it. 

[adamt18510785]

So I posted a video for adobe to see the issue, they seemed concerned after I told them what I think on their FB advertisement. 
I thought this might be a good starter video for my new channel. 

https://youtu.be/-DJrn2ICxUo


 

[robertd58785886]

Yup, Adam's video pretty much sums its up.

[rickodelldesign]

Yeap... this is pretty much spot on. What some may not realize is how drastic this becomes when dealing with more direct effects and tools. Previews, layer control, etc etc etc... Basic, basic stuff. I literally feel like I am on my middle school desktop computer from 1997. Literally that bad. Thanks for posting. BTW, 2019 photoshop no problems, lol. At which point, I'd like to get off my subscription since I am not using any updates or new releases, lol. 

[AW-UNAK685]

Hi - Yesterday I made the mistake of updating my PS to 21.2.0

NOT exactly sure whatever possessed me to try again (hope springs eternal I
guess)

IMMEDIATELY, Bridge locked up, froze so completely that I had to do a hard
shutdown of my computer. I tried several times to get BR & PS to work and
each time the same problem... total freeze. Finally gave up & tried to
uninstall all of PS2020 but I could not get all the tentacles and it kept
messing up my BR...

I did manage to get PS to work ONE TIME, and when I was trying to type in
lables in different layers, it kept adding Lorem Ipsum TO THE BACKGROUND
LAYER (even tho that layer was NOT selected) and then covered MY Type with
MORE Lorem Ipsum...regardless of how often I deleted the layer(s) WHERE I
had actually typed.

SO >>>

This morning I started calling ADOBE Tech support. It took 3 calls and
almost 2.5 HOURS to find someone who actually knew HOW TO WORK with Both BR
& PS. The first guy's phone connection was so bad I could barely hear
him. I asked him to call back and he never did. The second call asked me
to get in the queue and I waited for 14 minutes and then got disconnected.
I called the third time, got put in the Queue for a call back which came
thru 45+ minutes later. Fortunately this guy actually knew what to do, &
he was able to get into my computer and got PS cleared out... or something.

He 'uninstalled' PS 21.2.0 (altho I have no clue what he did that was any
different than what I did)(guess he's had a LOT of practice) and now I am
back with PS 20.0.8 which mostly works with BR 91.0.338 altho not quite the
same way it did two months ago.

SO >>>

I have begun searching for another Photo editing & filing system. I looked
at ACDSEE this morning.

Has anyone used it?

Does ACDSEE have a Keyword file structure similar to BR? OR even close?

Can I safely transfer my Keywords from BR into ACDSEE?

IS the RAW editing any good? I simply am no longer willing to waste $ AND
the rest of my life (I am 77) trying to get a simple task completed in a
few minutes when it now takes HOURS of fussing around with these app
conflicts.

Do they have good Tech Support?

Where is it located? In the US or offshore. I simply do not want to have
to spend anymore time with incompletely trained tech support folks using
seriously bad phone lines or microphones from 1972.

Sorry, I know we are all just trying to get by but given how much ADOBE is
sucking out of us... they should at least provide their techs with decent
equipment and phone lines and CREATE apps that work seamlessly! They used
to. That's what' getting me... WHY the recent garbage?

~~~

Anyone know of a bored homebound lawyer who might like to gather others to
take on ADOBE? I think what's happening is criminal. They keep charging
us to 'fix' things and then we have to work with their Techs to fix the fix
it.


--
*<<< Don't worry spiders, I keep house casually >>>*

* Issa (1763-1827)*

Abi Woodbridge e-mail: abiwoodbridge@gmail.com
PO Box 107 Unalaska, AK 99685 907-581-2535

[rickodelldesign]

I would also like to get an attorney or lawyer involved if anyone knows how to begin down that road. Perhaps we could team up. The subscription is so expensive for monthly use and I am using a version from fall of 2019 because anything since simply doesnt work...

[jeffreyd10060177]

I am having the same issues, only mine goes a step further, it lags, then freezes up, then it crashes, and boots me out of my account, and when I go to reopen CC, I have to put my email address, and password back in for CC to reopen again. I have tried just about everything suggested, I reset my prefferences, uninstalled, reinstalled etc. After I reset my preferences, and open my workspace, the program works beautifully, for about 30 minutes, then it starts the same thing again, starts to lag, freezes up, then boots me out of my account. I have a brand new computer, it's only 3 months old, it exceeds ALL minimum requirements and was using version 21.0.2 since I purchased it, I never had one single solitary issue with that version. occasionally and after working for several hours, it would slow up and lag a bit, but closing it out, and rebooting my computer always resolves that issue. I have talked with 2 different tech support agents, and neither were of any help, they told me my Graphics card isn't compatable with photoshop, even though I told them sevral times, 21.0.2 works fine, and it's a new computer. I am a small time, free lance graphic artist and the work I do doesn't require me to have some elaborate type of system, and the PC I have, is all I need to do what I do. I use the subject select feature quite often, and the new upgrade in the 21.2 version makes life so much easier for me. I can go back to using 21.0.2, but after using 21.2 and tis upgrade to Subject Select, I don't want to go back to using 21.0.2. but because I am working on a project that my client has already paid me in full for, it looks like I'll have no choice. Like I told both tech agents, Adobe needs to be sure that any upgrades they do to PS, works with all the latest, and current operating systems before they release it, because long time customers like myself, who pay full price for all CC apps, are not going to be happy if they can't use it, especially when one of the improved features, is something they use all the time. 

[adamt18510785]

So After talking to Adobe on FB, they made me do some stuff like uninstall, make a new windows account, ect.. They finally said they are going to send a ticket into engineering. 

Hopefully, they will look at the problem. 
My hypothesis is that PS is 20+ years old and they just crammed too much into it and now it's bloatware. 
I have been noticing it get slower and slower with each new version regardless of the new powerful speeds of machines and hardware. 
This seems to be par for the course for them, after all, look at what AE, flash, dreamweaver, ect has become.
I hope they intend at some point redoing all their software or making the "Adobe Program", there is no reason why photoshop, illustrator, xd, or InDesign, or animate have to different programs, they all seem to have overlapping capabilities, they should just make one program at this point and let these old programs die. 

[quiltermn]

Well, I guess it's not just me then....I got a Windows laptop last fall, because PSCC19 was really lugging down my 10 yr old laptop......new one has 64gb of RAM, 2-2tb hard drives, and I sprang for a 1tb SSD drive to use for a scratch disk. Everything was working beautifull until 2020 came out....I am so glad I kept 2019, but sure don't feel like I'm getting much bang for my buck from Adobe right now..........just frustrating, even though I'm a hobbyist, I thought I was getting something special when I finally switched to PSCC

[davidb65053847]

I'm hoping this clears up but this thread tells me it may not.

Same stuff: Just upgraded to PS2020. Import file as embedded, tried to resize with fixed ratio (SHIFT + drag from corner). Nope. Ratios were not constrained. Also, image went gray as I was resizing it. Also, image goes gray as I switch to another app on another monitor (with Photoshop still visible). Also, Image Adjustments don't preview while I adjust, but once I mouse-up. And while I'm adjusting it reverts to the original view (before Adjustments). All just sloppy stuff.

Hoping a computer reboot will clear issues, but if not, I just signed up for the 1 year photography package. Not an impressive start and may be looking to Corel to serve my design needs.

Update: figured out how I can revert back to PS 2019 (v20.0.5). Problem solved until they fix their latest release.

[AW-UNAK685]

It just gets more and more weird doesn't it.

I'm looking at other Apps too. Obviously ADOBE does not care because there
is a steady stream of unsuspecting folks buying in. Why kill the cash
cow? This company is apparently supporting half of Tech India as the
Developers and the other half of Tech India as 'the fixers' As well as the
phone companies and ISP's by creating bad functions needing tech support.

As AdamT said the other day... they should just make one program. I
concur. They are adding so much to an app that is 30 YEARS (I've been
using it since 1995) that the layers of layers of garbage are gumming up
the works.

AND > I had the same thing happen with a sudden blast of SPAM after an
Adobe tech support session last year. Same thing happened with Dell 3 yrs
ago. Bad Computer performance, bad Tech and ... so I switched to a Dell
Precision 3420 with onshore tech support and that fixed the bad tech and
spam issue.

ADOBE >>> Go back to the drawing board and CREATE A NEW Photoshop... One
for MAC, One for WIN10 and one for whatever other platforms are the most
popular. WORK with the developers of those OS >>> and >>>>> BEFORE you
release updates FIX THE BUGS. UPDATE only 1x a YEAR.

~~~
SO > Onward troops! Carry on and let's find options to Adobe

I need a BRIDGE function and something with fewer issues than PS. Any
ideas?

Let's make a list of basic needs and see what will work for which kinds of
needs.

I decided to not even bother with the legal aspects because at this point
the whole thing is too nebulous...

Actually, It is Positively Dickensian ala "Bleak House" which is worth
reading. If you are in a hurry... read about the legal case between
Jarndyce & Jarndyce, in Wikipedia etc. By the time the lawyers have sucked
the inheritance dry it has gone thru GENERATIONS of Litigation... no one
is left alive from the original case, no one can quite recall the details
AND everyone involved has lost track of their true purpose in life... which
is to live happily ever after.

So... Have been thru the uninstall/reinstall et nauseum two days ago...
that lasted about 24 HOURS and then the lagging, freezing, grinding to a
halt started all over again. It is NOT my computer.

<<< end run >>>
--
*<<< Don't worry spiders, I keep house casually >>>*

[removed by moderator]

[adamt18510785]

So support told me to go here and complain, I suggest everyone should as well, hit that "me too" button in the corner

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshop-cc-2020-21-2-app-literally-became-c...

[amberp8900391]

Having the same issues! It's impossible to use the brush tool and know what you're doing. I thought I was going crazy!!

[adamt18510785]

go to this thread and tell them what you're are experiencing and hit the "me too" button the top
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/photoshop-cc-2020-21-2-app-literally-became-c...

[peaceprop]

2020 is unusable at this point—this is totally unacceptable. Adobe's releases are buggier and buggier. I don't understand what the h*** they are doing over there? Do they not test their product? They keep adding things most people probably don't want, and either not fixing, or breaking the core functionality. Back to 2019 and 2018 for now—what a crock for the fortune they must have with all of these CC subscriptions ($1,400/year in this household alone).