Photoshop 2021 slow and laggy [LOCKED]

[adamt18510785]

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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. 

[default8c45ppsd82ya]

I have been having issues additionally and contemplated whether it was my PC. In light of these presents, it shows up to be a PS 2021 issue. I figured I would test this hypothesis. I actually have PS 2020 on my PC so I began utilizing it to check whether it has similar issues and it doesn't. It is as quick as could be expected. I surmise I will be looking out for an update before I take a stab at utilizing 2021 once more.

[enzlow]

I never come on here and post tips, but I think I found something worth a shot...

I have a NVIDIA RTX 2070 Super and PS was being very laggy, especially when I was trying to open a photo. I realized I had G-SYNC turned on for windowed apps because I have the indicator on and could see it in PhotoShop.

I had a hunch that it could be causing some issues, so I went into my NVIDIA Control Panel and switched G-SYNC to just full screen apps. Fired up PS and it loaded quickly without lagging when trying to open a photo.

I know this doesn't help people with AMD graphics cards exactly... but I imagine FreeSync would probably cause similar issues. Worth looking into it I suppose.

Anyway, I hope this helps some of you! 

[bysea]

Just did the update to v22.2 - back to Pshop He**. Loaded, waited, tried to do some work and laggy as all he**.

What are you doing Adobe? The version, two versions ago, was working for me, but this is unusable again.

[dennisp4478397]

Don't know how is your workflow, but my problem was solved after I disabled the GPU Acceleration in Lightroom and the "native acceletarion" in PS.
I work with both open always.  My PS is running good now.
I don't use a tablet

[bysea]

Will try that next... what's the point of these high-end cards?

[dennisp4478397]

The problem is somethign with Adobe's softwares.  The PS is still using the GPU acceleration here, I just disabled the "native OS acceletarion" option in the GPU acceleratiojn menu.
My Lightroom is now running kinda laggy in develop mode, but if I'll do heavy editing in LR, I turn on the GPU Accel and turn it off before opening PS.
It's not ideal, but It's been a work around I found.

Hope the fix that issue soon 

[Jaysb77]

Hi, 

I had the same issue. Have you tried turning off the following in the preference panel

Go to edit preferences/Tools and uncheck the following:

Tool Tips
Show Rich Tool Tips
Enable Gestures

Those that were  having panning issues uncheck the following:

Enable Flick Panning

Hope this helps

Thanks

Jason

[dennisp4478397]

Tool Tips
Show Rich Tool Tips
Enable Gestures

Good Idea!
I just disabled them. Let's see If I can work with PS and LR now with both using GPU Accel

[Jaysb77]

Hope it works for you. Let me know how you make out.

Now if I could just figure out why Photoshop 2021 v22.2.0 is not responding after it passes the splash screen. It sit for at least 5 in before it start responding

2017 - 2019 has no issues with this. Very strange

Thanks,
Jason 

[dennisp4478397]

Did not work here.
If I have the GPU acceleration turned on in Lightroom, my lasso tools lags. Always. 
Seems I can't have both using GPU Acceleration turned on.

[TheArtofSantana]

Ive tried that. I spent hours with Adobe over a several days and tried so much and many of these issues persist. Its the worst experience Ive had in my 15 years as a creative in digital space. 

[bysea]

I do not know what's happening with Pshop. Dl'd latest version a few days back, opened various files with lag/delay/stutter, etc. Tried many things suggested and no dice. Today, opened it, and ran w/o a hitch. Wth??? Is there some code that it only runs well on certain hours, days, etc.? I'll report back tomorrow to see if it's taken a timeout or works on Thursdays.

[smackmick]

I have not used Photoshop enough recently to know if most of the operations are laggy, but the startup is.  I turned off the GPU and I thought this worked, I could now see the menu and the frames.  But the tool was frozen for almost a minute, nothing would respond.  I did notice all the Recent images did not appear until the tool came out of it.  And I see about 50% CPU usage and 4M/s disk use.  Once unfrozen, the CPU and disk continue for another minute even though the tool is usable.

[qrysdonnell]

So I've been trying to research this issue over the past few days. I run IT for a company of about 100 people and people started reporting it on the 12th. Version 22.2 looks to have been released on the 9th.

My test for if a system is effected is to just create a new blank document (two clicks - create new - create). Normally this should take 4-15 seconds dependig on teh computer and how it feels, but when it's messed up it takes almost 3 minutes.

Usually if you try and go back to 2020 it turns out to be broken as well (and of course it wasn't before the latest 2021 update).

The best fix I have so far is to disable Use Graphics Processor performance preference (which requires closing and reopening Photoshop for it to have an effect). I have had a few systems where I then ended up with another issue where using selection tool freezes up for a while (90 seconds). For these I've had to go back to 2020 and disable the Use Graphics Processor setting in 2020.

This has happened on computers I set up long ago, computers I set up fairly recently. Powerful desktops. Not so powerful laptops, even a hosted VDI.

There are no traditional signs of performance issues (processors pegged, memory is normal, etc.) task manager does usually show 'not responding' during these pauses. No 'good reason' for this to be happening, but there's definitely something happening.

I can find people talking about Photoshop being slow, but this forum seems to be the spot where the most intelligent discussion is going on. There's definitely some major problem with the update, that much is clear.

[bysea]

Thanks for this ^ and good testing...yes, it's been an issue for several major release cycles with no apparent rhyme/reason to it. Some diable their GPU, which sometimes works, but not consistently. The first launch of 22.2 was good, but then using it for the same thing (photo editing/retouching) the next day, wait a few minutes for it to launch/settle, then click, wait, click, wait, rinse and repeat. Unusable in that state. If I'm pushing it, my PC fans will crank up, but they never go past normal speed when using Pshop. It's like the old days with IRQ conflicts, etc. I even looked at those, but all are "ok".

It almost appears to be a memory allocation issue where it operates like it has no resources, but for me, there's plenty on tap w/ a decent GPU and some here, with the very latest hardware. Your tests show no memory issue as hardware isn't being pushed hard. Premiere had this issue several years ago, but they got it all sorted and works great. According to my sources, Adobe is very siloed and it shows in their app dev and testing.

I noticed w/ this latest update that there's more new features...stop. Fix the issues, but for now, it works on Mondays, 9-11am, Thursdays and sometimes on Fridays between 1 and 3pm, and laggy on all the rest. YMMV.

[ashleyf7209708]

It's 2/18/2021 and my Illustrator is not processing anything. If I click more than 2 outlines to add fill, it freezes for 15 minutes. I have run updates for all my drivers and the synapses say everything on my computer is up to date. Yet, Illustrator will not work - even with the new v 25.2 update. Today I tried going back to the earliest install I could find which is v 24.3. and it still does not work.

I'm in my last semester of graduate school and I am on a deadline to finish work for a project. Please help. 

[bysea]

This is a Pshop forum (there's one for Illustrator), but I did load AI and it performed as expected. You may get a better response in the AI forum. https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/bd-p/illustrator?page=1&sort=latest_replies&filter=all

What are your running it on, hardware-wise?

Multiple drives?

Tablet?

Check your preferences and maybe disable GPU? Try resetting your preferences clicking at the bottom of the "General" prefs page/dialog. Good luck!

[BLiTZ]

Glad I'm not alone with CC 2021 running badly, however, I seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place choosing whether to turn the GPU on or off.

The main issue I have is that the Lasso Tool lags massively behind the cursor. I've found that it gets worse the bigger the window pane and at full screen (a must on a 13" MBP) its barely even usable.

If I disable the GPU it works flawlessly, buttery smooth, no lag whatsoever, but then I run into the issue of choppy zooming and adjustments such as Hue and Saturation resulting in half the screen going black whilst I move the sliders which renders fine adjustment impossible.

I don't use PS much these days, yet keep paying the subscription for the times I need to, so it's all the more frustrating that when I do open it, it runs worse than the last time I used it.

[PixelPusherWizard]

I'm running a high-performance graphics machine with an Invidia Quadro P2000 driving 3 monitors. The other day I updated Windows 10 along with Photoshop. Photoshop 22.2.0 has been running horrible. It's so laggy that it's basically unusable. I decided to update my Nvidia drivers, but that didn't help either. I downloaded an earlier release version of Photoshop 21.2.5, but for some reason, this is also laggy now. I've had to turn off the graphics acceleration on Photoshop just to get it running at a reasonable speed. I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but before updating Photoshop, everything was running well on my machine.  

[PixelPusherWizard]

UPDATE: I had the systems engineer turn off SentinelOne which has been loaded on all of the workstations here at work. After I restarted my machine and turned back the Graphics Accelerator on Photoshop's settings and restarted Photoshop, everything is back to normal. Everything has been running smoothly... Crossing my fingers that it stays perfect. 

BTW: I found the solution on another thread: https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop/sentinelone-messing-with-photoshop/m-p/11857150 (It's the last entry by DandyMan)

[qrysdonnell]

Well, we do have SentinelOne on our PCs so that matches up. Now just need to figure out how to get whatever it's mad at excluded properly.

[PixelPusherWizard]

I had the IT engineer make an exclusion for Adobe Photoshop. I'm not really sure what he did, but it was a lot of trial and error. I had to start and restart both my machine and Photoshop several times before we could get it to work properly. SentinelOne is up and running and it doesn't appear to be interfering with Photoshop's functionality for now. And yes, I do have my graphics acceleration back on under Photoshop settings. With the Photoshop exclusion, SentinelOne seems to be playing nice with Photoshop again. 

[schrajmund]

I jump on the complain-train too: 

-- since v2019 it is gettin gradually slower. 2020 was still usable, but 2021 is incredibly laggy, borderline disfunctional. 

I use a Ryzen 3900X, 32Gb CL18 RAM, 1Tb of NVMe storage for PS and Windows, and many more SSD-s for the files and cache, and a GTX970 (I know... I know... ). Every other software works in an instant on this config, as it should be (except Lightroom, that thing is too slow as hell). I tried lots of stuff, updating drivers, tinkering with settings, reinstall, etc. BUT if we pay that much (it is a lot, if you look at the sum accumulated during the years) I don't really think that the customer should do hours of fruitless repair tries on the broken product. It is a broken product right now. It's like a car, that has nice seat heating and the AC works fine, but you can't accelerate over 50mph. Considering how much did I spent on a higher-end PC to be able to work smoothly, I feel like Adobe is robbing me, everytime they are drawing the sub's fee. It is fine if sometimes a release is not that optimized, but getting patched quickly. But this situation is lasting more than a year now, and getting worse with every update. Every update, when I get the notification, and I'm hopeful, maybe, finally they solved it, but then an another dissappointment: yeaa new features, while I cannot even zoom smoothly on a picture. Why bother neural enhancing details, if it tooks minutes to zoom in to check them... I'm only staying, because of the ipad, but as soon as a competitor releases a usefull cross platform photo editing package, and PS will still be this bad, I'm leaving Adobe. 

[iana71313648]

I am really fed-up with Photoshop.  The 2021 release is so slow,  its getting to be a significant production issue for my assignments.  I also had a struggle with my GPU (Nvidia Quadro) and had to back-date the drivers,  becuase 2021 just did not like the current driver release.  Also,  have now preferenced out my GPU,  but does not make a lot of difference.  I went back to my old 5.1 release (which I have on disk) and it was light years ahead on performance, but of course, not as well featured.  The developers of photoshop seem to feel the need to continually bloat the code.  I am running SSD's, plus Dell Precision Workstation with 48GB memory and 16 cores of CPU.  My brother-in-law is running a Mac and has similar issues.

[Denki_ChargeBolt]

Jumping on the train as well.

Windows 10 pro 64 bit, 64gb ram, i9, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, all drivers updated from manufacturer site, no pending updates, turned off smoothing, turned off windows ink, tried everything. 

Program was working fine when I was using 2019 version, now that I had to switch computers and install 2021, it has been a nightmare. The lag is unbearable and it is greatly affecting my work. 

All the brushes lag so matter the stetting brush or file size, I do not have imported brushes installed as it is a fresh install, and I even notice using two screens that my cursor gets drastically slower entering the photoshop window.   Look forward to any solution.  Thank you!