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. 

[Digital Twins]

I don't have "Use native operating system GPU acceleration" as an option in PS 2021?

[SnowSultan]

Disabling all of the GPU features may have slightly lessoned the frequency of brush lagging here, but it still happens enough to make serious work impossible. Very strange that people are having such differing problems, it really is hard to tell exactly what needs to be fixed. Photoshop runs fairly well for me if I just use a mouse and a monitor, but as soon I move it to the tablet screen, everything goes bad. It makes me think the problem might be on my end, but these problems ONLY are happening with Photoshop, not Clip Studio Paint, not the trial of Affinity Paint that I tried, and not even 3D rendering software. 

[Themaddhattr]

I have the older version installed too and it helped but didnt fix all issues for me. Guess I just have to deal with this until the new update. Very frustrating. 

[naomiw87843186]

Intel Core i9-9900k, 32 GB of RAM, and Photoshop 2021 runs like garbage. Specifically- when I am using the brush or any other tool, it will freeze. I have to close my document and re-open in order to get it to work again. This will happen multiple times within minutes. I've had problems with Adobe before but now I'm seriously considering letting my subscription run out and replacing it with something else. 

[Jeffery5FF0]

I was having issues with PS as well so after updating all drivers and everything else, updated to the latest version of PS and then it all bombed.  I called a colleague who started laughing because he was having problems too- turning off GPU usage helps but.... he suspects it was a Windows update.

[bysea]

FWIW, I downloaded the latest version today, 22.1.1, and for now, it's back to "normal" - menus, filters, type all open/run as expected. Note that it take a good minute or two to load and stabilize, but once up and running it seems to be okay. I'll report back if it starts lagging again (as has been for the last year on the 21/22 builds.

I'm on a laptop running laptop monitor + 27" NEC ext monitor | 24 GBs RAM | Intel i7-6700HQ | NVIDIA GTX 1060 | WIN 10 Pro (10.0.18363)

[SnowSultan]

I installed this latest update and it did not fix the lagging/interrupted brush strokes on a tablet. Would like to hear if anyone else having that problem is still having it so I can determine whether it's an issue on my end now. Thanks.

[Guest]

Hi there. Please fire the Product team who created this now piece of crap software. Please take back all of the ridiculous money that they made for it, for wasting my money. They're most likely sitting their cocky asses atop their horses, living large, off of our money. As we sit here suffering with this crap update. The product team deserves a kick out the door.

What normally would have taken me a couple of hours, took me an entire work day. Not only has this software wasted my time, it has wasted my money. And I want that money back Adobe.

I'll be contacting you directly for a refund Adobe. The refund will be given for the loss of my time and money. For contributing to damages regarding my reputation for the delivery of untimely work.

As you might have noticed by now, this is unacceptable. Whoever here is suffering with the new photoshop, you too should contact Adobe for a refund of payment without the cancellation of your software. Until it is fixed, this is a situation nobody should be facing. 

Once again, Adobe, please remove the people who have drove this (previously) great tool into the ground. How do you mess up something that was once working?

Here's my issues: I can't put in place a damn thing anywhere in the program. I place an object or text somewhere, then it appears in a different place due to the tremedous LAG. I can't zoom in or out without a glitch and a random relocation to a random spot in the file. Do you understand how completely [Profanity removed by moderator ]  this is? 

You probably don't because you're sitting pretty in an overpriced mansion not actually having to use the program at all. 

So let's again make this clear. Refund now. 

[MrMulder]

anyone who pays for anything Adobe makes is getting ripped off. Every year their software gets worse... slower, buggier, more pointless. They did stuff we don't need and don't fix anything we do. The trouble is the alternatives are just not there. Thankfully I have Figma for my vector and web work which is 10000 times better and faster than anything Adobe ever built ... and it's a browser app - that's how poor Adobe software has become!

[naomiw87843186]

Upon downgrading to Photoshop 2020, I was startled to find that the "freezes" I was experiencing with canvas size/duplicating layer groups were because Photoshop was sending the confirmation menus to one of my monitors that was not in use (and thus turned off.) This was my greatest issue, but I will continue to stick with 2020 for the time being until the other bugs in 2021 are ironed out. 

[SnowSultan]

Hm, that's an interesting idea I hadn't tried yet. I do have two monitors active when using Photoshop on the tablet, maybe turning the other one off could help. Thanks, will try tomorrow and mention if it helps at all.

[SnowSultan]

Nope, cursor starts lagging the moment I put pen to tablet. I tried turning Windows Ink on and off, updated graphics drivers, reduced and raised Photoshop's grapical settings, hid all menus, hid the Navigator, nothing.

Can't deal with this anymore, Photoshop is the only program giving me these kinds of problems. If it's still this unusable by the time my subscription renewal hits, I may have to unsubscribe.

[bysea]

I've been having the same issues w/ every version of Pshop over the last year, EXCEPT for this one. Go figure. I also have a Wacom table (driver 6.3.15-3) that is smooth and works as expected.

I'm also on 1909 version of Win10 Pro - what Win versions are you all on? I think there may two newer versions, 20H2 being the latest update. I'm surprised it hasn't been pushed out to me yet.

[CRembold]

MANY continued issues, in my troubleshooting, most "detail" orriented issues were present in 2019 2020 2021.

I just read a blog about iMac FUSION drives using APFS file structure. IT SAYS DO NOT!!! and that high sierra prevents fusion drive from formatting to APFS. 

HOWEVER...

After my iMac wipe weeks ago and continued ACR and PSv22 issues, (Similar and now many more) I just discovered that my FUSION drive IS APFS. Some days I can patiently get thru the ACR develop module (minutes waiting for beachball), and a day like today it locks up for 20-30 minutes til mac reboots. Ive moved my scratch disk to 3 different drives, but Im pretty convinced right now, that PS doesnt like my FUSION drive its mounted on , or the APFS file structure. Im not excited about converting to Mac OS ext journaled.

I thought it was GPU but it has good days and just works and then awful days, I think its a disk problem especially when people talk about how PS is determined to use scratch disk even when ALL available ram is made available for PS. (As mine is)

[SnowSultan]

Friggin' hell, even the latest "major" update (22.2 I think?) didn't fix my brush lag problems. Even tried using the screen tablet *only* as a tablet and used it to draw on main monitor, still lag. I'd swear the problem was on my end if any other graphics program had the same issues.

[SnowSultan]

Apologies, it seems now if I completely disable graphic acceleration on Photoshop, the lag is gone. Not sure why that's necessary when I have a good card (Nvidia 2080ti), but it seems to be better now. Thanks to Adobe for getting the recent patches out quickly and I hope others are also seeing some of their issues resolved.

[Guest]

But even this isnt acceptable, whats the point in having decent hardware if the software cant leverage it? its not even like your card is so brand new its not supported yet.. its been out for over 2 years!

[garethc35499348]

Agreed. I paid a lot of money for a graphics card solely for better performance in some apps... and now I have to turn it off?

[SnowSultan]

Oh I agree, this is weird and shouldn't be happening, but I'll sacrifice smooth zooming to have my brushes work again. I bought the 2080ti for 3D rendering anyway, Photoshop worked fine for me back when I had a 980ti.

Maybe others won't have to do what I did, we'll see once everyone gets this new update installed.

[dimalique]

Update: 22.2 helped with my laggy brush, zoom and move tool problems, and I can now run Photoshop on my laptop without it taking up to a minute to realize any action taken. There's still a second or so lag on my lappy, but I can work with it. The update has not, however, helped with the blending problem. I am still not seeing a preview when I switch between blending modes (normal, dissolve, etc), and it can take several seconds for the program to finish displaying my choice after I press OK, on both my laptop and my desktop. Entering the blending options dialog, doing anything there does not display a preview and is slow to finish displaying after I press OK (and yes, I have preview checked).

[dimalique]

Update to my update: Photoshop has become laggy again on my laptop. I can't preview any changes I wish to make, whether blending options or filters or whatnot. I have installed the oldest version I have access to, and even then, it can take up to a minute to change the visibility of a layer. My desktop performs better, but it, too, has difficulty with blending modes and will take several seconds to display changes. Now that Premiere Pro decided I can't put videos in the timeline, I'm very much wondering what, exactly, is "professional" about the professional software I pay a lot to use. Frustrated is a kind way to phrase it.

[TheArtofSantana]

Just wanted to add after weeks on the phone with Adobe it finally started running "somewhat" ok. I mean at least to a point where it was still lagging (brushes, zoom, selecting layers, dragging etc) but not as bad and I was able to deal with it. This lasted a couple days and some days are better than others. For example last night was horrendous but now this morning is not as bad. The unpredictability is insanely frustrating. This feels like a nightmare that never ends.  

[kaelhser]

Ps 2019  on i5 macbook better than ps 2021 i9 imac. İ want to delete ps than back to the 2021 its dosent matter how powerfull pc u have.ADOBE have to fix this problem 

[kaelhser]

*back to 2019

[Micheal5C54]

I experience some weighty slacks and stammering in PTS 2021. At that point, I saw the lattices for snapping sprung up momentarily at whatever point that occurred so I went to View and incapacitate Extra (hotkey Ctrl H). Or then again you can impair Smart matrices. These arrangements quickly did it for me (despite the fact that it will probably be back inside 60 minutes). Inform me as to whether this makes a difference.