Photoshop 2021 slow and laggy [LOCKED]

[adamt18510785]

This thread is now locked by a moderator and you are welcome to continue a civil discussion in a new thread or add to the bug report that goes to the product developers. See the link in the answer marked "Correct".

Here are the forum guidelines:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/using-the-community-discussions/adobe-support-community-guidelines/td...

---

I'm going to start this new thread for the new version of photoshop. 
There are hundreds of comments about 2020 being slow and laggy and not a single adobe rep has even acknowledged it. I was hoping the upgrade would solve everyone's issues but alas that isn't the case. 

So this thread is for all you old and newcomers with new and old machines where photoshop runs like crap to complain about. Maybe their newest software might be seen for them to do something.  

I'll go first: 
Ryzen 9, 64 gigs of 3200 ram, 1080 ti gfx, 1nvme 3200mb.s ssd for programs, 1 tb sata sdd cache drive, 2 tb WD black for files. 

Photoshop takes almost 3 seconds to do simple things like changing to a shape pen tool to make shapes. 
Lags on anything pen tool, and type tool
Played with every setting in the performance and went through their pages on optimizing. 
I even went through the Nvidia setting but only gained a slight boost in performance. 

[TheArtofSantana]

Well thats what I thought so I tested it and yeah it still blows. It still lags and has the interupted brush strokes. 

Let me ask you a question. Do the fans on your computer go on and get loud often? Alomost everytime I'm working especially in Photoshop my computer fans start and get loud. It goes off and on but its pretty consistent throughout the day. 

[SnowSultan]

I don't think I'm having that problem, no. My fans are controlled manually (just two speeds, normal and high for when I'm rendering), but I haven't noticed anything unusual when using Photoshop. Hope you can figure out what that's all about.

[SnowSultan]

Sorry for the double post. So it does still interrupt the brush strokes on a traditional non-screen tablet?  Huh, after all this time, Photoshop still has issues with tablets of any kind.  😞

[Themaddhattr]

Yeah. Sorta makes me wish I could just go back to Acrylics and canvas lolol. 

[nicoles67567231]

I have have the interrupted brush stroke happen a couple of times and chalked it up to the fact that I had a new tablet (an XP-PEN) and was adjusting to it. 

The thing is, it was happening on my old tablet too--but that tablet died shortly thereafter (confirmed it was the tablet, not Photoshop) so it didn't occur to me that this was a Photoshop issue. Now that I'm reading this I'm remembering the pre-death interrupted strokes and I think this is probably a PS issue.

Tablet is non-screen, btw.

[Fireapple]

Ryzen 9 3950x, RTX 3080, 32gb 2400x ram, 500gb m.4 pcie drive dedicated to adobe only. Everything updated to latest drivers, chipset, bios. CC 2021 runs like complete garbage. Lagging on every action; even basic things like zoom and pan stutter and freeze for seconds. Forget cycling through blending modes; I have to stop for five seconds on each mode to allow preview to catch up with the change. Small projects now take half a day, we shouldn't be paying $1.99 a month for this crap let alone what you are actually charging which is already exorbitant. 

[brotherluca]

Ryzen 7 3700xt / 32GB of RAM  3200mhz / RTX 2070 with NVME SSDs

Photoshop is behaving sluggish/laggy, even when i'm not actively doing anything like pasting in or copying, smart objects behave like crazy (laggy and inconsistent in behaviour), resizing or saving take forever, wether it be on ssd or network... 😞

i'm at wit's end here 😞

[dimalique]

My desktop is Windows 10, Intel i7-9700K with 32 GB RAM and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 super. After upgrading to Photoshop 2021, slow is the only way to describe performance. Photoshop 2020 worked fine for me, though I know others had problems. I've tried the performance enhancing suggestions (the driver updates, GPU, etc), reinstalled, reinstalled to a previous version, and nothing seems to work. I don't run any third-party plug-ins, so I know that isn't the problem. I can't use Photoshop on my laptop anymore because it's glacial. On my desktop, grids pop up when they should not, it takes a minute to change tools if I'm lucky, blending options take up to a minute to show preview, changing layers can take anywhere from a minute or two. When I try to move objects, nothing happens, then the object jumps into place, nowhere near where I intended. Slowly inching them to the correct position with arrow keys can take up to 30 seconds per keystroke. Shortcuts for things like undo and save do not work. Illustrator, so far, has worked just fine, but I'm dreading when it, too, tanks. I create outlines in Illustrator and move to Photoshop for color. I don't want to change to other software, but it's getting to the point I feel like I don't have another choice.

[mojo potatoes]

Out of curiosity, how many of you that are experiencing slow performance have Lightroom open simultaneously? The second I close LR, PS performance jumps up to normal operating specifications. It's still not flawless but it is much better. 

[Themaddhattr]

Not I. I've resorted to just Photoshop and Slack open. I used to work with multiple Photoshop files open, Cinema 4D, and several Browser windows all open at the same time and even then it would move wayyyy better and faster than this. This is insanity. 

[dimalique]

I don't have any other programs on my computer open when I run Photoshop now.Not even a browser. I used to be able to have Photoshop and Illustrator and Bridge open at the same time, along with my browser and maybe an MSWord docx. Nothing helps performance.

[Fireapple]

Have not had lightroom open. 

[dennisp4478397]

me.  My workflow is with both running simultaneously

[adamt18510785]

Should we start blitzing Adobe on their social media with this thread link, maybe do a hashtag like #adobeScam

[macsnapper]

I was hating Photoshop it was slow to open, slow to close, sometimes didn't even close at all. Other programs running at the same time were laggy and compromised.

I've just updated to v 22.1.1 and it's like I got the old photoshop back.. 20 secs to open, closes instantly and all my other apps, even firefox seem more responisive, as though PS is not stealing resources or something.

So far no performance issues I've found.

It's only been two days.

Fingers crossed.

(HP Pavilion)

[robinn34701898]

I have been having issues also and wondered if it was my computer. Based on all of these posts it appears to be a PS 2021 issue. I thought I would test this theory. I still have PS 2020 on my computer so I started using it to see if it has the same issues and it does not. It is as speedy as ever. I guess I will be waiting on an update before I try using 2021 again.

[ari800]

I got Ryzen 3950x with 64 gigs of fastest ram available, 2x RTX 2070Supers and files run on m.2 or fast ssds. Everything is significally slower than in PS 2020, which was already slower than 2019. 2021 is unusable for pretty much anything - let alone 100+ layer composite work with huge pixel dimensions.

Adobe lets the basic functionality slip and and packs up totaly useless features like the new neural filters.

Also the memory handling is a joke, even if you allocate 64 gigs of RAM to PS, it barely uses half and preferres to write and read from scratch disk and you end up having some 30+gigs of free unused memory.

I have been running photoshop professionally everyday since CS5 and this CC-era has been total downfall of all things related to performance. IF there only was one viable option I would unsubsribe in a heartbeat.

We are currently PAYING money to be BETA testers.

[SnowSultan]

Yesterday I decided to seriously give it another try because I have a guy waiting for me to touch up some 3D renders. I was literally yelling at the ceiling and pulling on my hair within 15 minutes and had to tell the guy I absolutely could not continue on his project until this was resolved. Brushes are almost completely useless here; all I can really do is assemble the EXRs in Photoshop and apply adjustment layers, then send the thing over to Clip Studio Paint for any actual retouching.

Even Adobe's site is slow now, heh. Really hope things can be remedied soon.

[mattyp01]

I think I might give up altogether. I've just bought Affinity Photo for £23.99. Im prettu sure it will do everything i need. I've already moved my video suite over to Davinci Resolve

[JEFFERY A5CAC]

I'm having the same problem.  The problem I'm having is with basic, simple operations, like opening a file.  I use a iMac Pro.  I open the program (with no other apps open) and hit command+O to open a file, and I get the damn spinning beachball for 3-5 minutes before the "open file" window even pops up.  This is after updating my OS and updating the Photoshop App.  Once the file is open, then the rest is pretty much smooth sailing, but getting started is completely sluggish.  It's irritating because I'm paying for this subscription and I don't feel like I'm getting my money's worth a simple operation like opening a file takes 5 minutes.

[maxt78871096]

Same here after making the mistake of updating to Photoshop 2021. Getting the beachball of death for doing absolutely anything! it runs slow and lags, even on very smalls files.
What the heck Adobe?  It's unnaceptable that we pay a premium pricetag for virtually zero Adobe support and accountability. Adobe better respond or fully refund. After decades of running Photoshop premium with no issues, we are being forced to seek out to other alternatives only due to Adobe's negligence to finally solve their glitches once and for all. Adobe wake up and take care of business!

[dennisp4478397]

I'm having lagging issues here too, since 2020 version.
My lasso tool lags sometimes. To fix, I have to restart Photoshop AND Lightroom (I always work with both simultaneously).
Clone stamp is always lagging.
I didn't have that problem running PS2020 in my old Mac Pro 2012.  

Now I'm running PS 2021 in a custom built PC.  Ryzen 9 3900X, 64Gb DDR4 2666, X570 Asus mobo, Nvidia GTX 1080 Founder's Edition, Nvme for system and apps, SSD for cache and HDD for files.

[maxt78871096]

I just downgraded to photoshop 22.0 and it solved all issues. I recommended everyone to do this for now. Is unacceptable that we have to incur to this.


Max Tovar
Senior marketing creative.
Pro-Family Activist and Incubator.
[Website info and contact details removed by moderator]

[dennisp4478397]

I've disabled the "Use native operating system GPU acceleration" option.  And disables the GUP acceleration in Lightroom as well.
Apparently it seems to have solved.  Can't say for sure yet, 'cos I don't work on weekends.  I'll report if it really solved or not during the week. 

[dennisp4478397]

Today, I had no problems. Running smooth. 
I tested enabling GPU acceleration in Lightroom, and Photoshop startes to lag again.  Then I disabled it again and PS just got back to normal without the need to restart.

So, disabling "Use native operating system GPU acceleration" in PS and GPU acceleration in Lightroom solved my lag problem as it seems.

And I don't use any tablets. Just mouse.