Photoshop CS4 is a disaster

[_ProArtist_]

I'm am just at a loss of words.

What a mess. It could not be any slower. What were you thinking Adobe?

You ripped apart the code just to add GPU support for what? To provide worse performance?

Make sure you DL the demo first... CS4 is a disaster.

The latest hardware cant even run it smoothly... Dont tell me its graphic drivers.

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

i Gets worse if you build a system and buy a OEM disk. It may be cheaper however you are now the owner and troubleshooter. Microsoft won't help you. Buy regular retail and microsoft will help you.

Not true. I have a sample copy of XP Pro and I recently was told I had 2 free help calls, of which I promptly used one. No matter. The advice was bogus and I had to solve it on my own, and actually, with a comment here in these forums concerning a specific AV and their "extra added features".

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

i I believe that detailing the HW/driver configurations that failed and the one that succeeded would be of great help to the Engineers at Adobe.

Outrageous! We do what for people earning $30-$50+ an hour to do this?

I do software validation for a major silicon manufacturer. No way will I do this stuff for free.

[Guest]

Lawrence,
It is been 3 years since I chose a xp pro retail over OEM. It is good that Microsoft has since given 2 free calls for OEM. Maybe the shop owner who told me this was wrong? Anyways....

Thanks for the info update :)

[Guest]

I'd do a restore point before installing the hp printer stuff ivan... just a hunch.

[Guest]

If you can do it just install the drivers only (with Epson you can download them without the un-necessary bloatware that takes over the computer).

[Guest]

>If you can do it just install the drivers only (with Epson you can download them without the un-necessary bloatware that takes over the computer).

seconded!!!

[Guest]

definitely install your spider pro early on. that's a key piece of your imaging workflow.

[_Richard_Magnante_]

I run a Intel quad core 6600 with 3.2 gigs of system ram and an Nvidia 8800 Ultra 768 megs of ram. Running on Vista 32 ultimate. I believe my machine is within Adobe's specs to run the program, yet I am experiencing the slowness like others. I have the latest video drivers, but I get a little bit better performance with the advanced/3d performance taken off in the preferences. CS3 runs as smooth as ever however. I am seeing very strange behavior leading me to suspect I may have a bad install though:

I can't even just "open" something, it's greyed out, I have to choose "open recent" and then "clear recent" to get the "open" option to appear.

Changes made to a photo or a project require that I either zoom in or out or resize via mouse drag to see the change.

Example: Once I go though the whole "open fiasco" and finally get a photo open, some strange things happen......I sometimes don't get a thumbnail in the channel/layers section. If I do get a thumbnail and I go to alter the photo like say levels or curves, the change won't happen until I either zoom or resize. Although I can see the change happen in the thumbnail if it's there.

Also, when I make a change, most of the time the "undo" is greyed out, which is weird. I can still do the "undo" via keyboard command though, but again, I have to zoom or resize to see the change.

Example: I will open a photo and have the channels/layer thumbnail there. Then switching to lab color I sometimes will lose the thumbnails, then after picking the lightness channel and bringing up unsharp mask, the display will just be checkerboarded and only when I hit the zoom percentage just under the display area in unsharp mask window will the picture come up. Then when I hit ok to that and it goes back to the main, I lose the thumbnails for RGB and Lightness, yet color channels A+B thumbnails are still there? Sometimes I will see the sharpen change, sometimes I have to do the resize/zoom thing. Then again, I'm still not out of the woods. I have to switch back to RGB now and guess what, all of a sudden "mode" is now greyed out?

Sorry for the long post, but this is very, very bizzare behavior and I'm wondering if anybody is seeing this? At this time I'm starting to think I have a bad install, even though no errors or messages came up in during the install other than that it was successful and finished. Also, I do not get any crashes or codes, so it seems stable from that point of view for me.

[Guest]

rich, have you tried to reset your preferences? might clear up your open problem... crtl-alt-shift during startup... see the faq for full details.

[_iVan_B__]

Hugh, Ill make sure I include the full description of the software and hardware configurations (before and after) in my report when Im done. Ill also make sure Adobe gets it too. I dont want to do it now, my posts are getting kind of long already with all this work, but I can point you to my posts #270 and #322 where you can get a rough idea. In short, my hardware is now the same as it was before (short of power supply, but we know that wasnt the issue now). Ill cover more about software and drivers. No firmware changes to anything, just a flashed BIOS.

Lawrence, I would prefer not to do this, but seeing no solution from Adobe as of yet I felt compelled to do something. Besides, some time ago I had a problem with CS3 (paragraph below) that I solved reading Adobe Photoshop forums. Time to give back.

Dave, the thing about the HP printer - that totally echoed with me given the whole thing with Photoshop being slow to open files when default printer is on a network. Which is that thing I would have never found out were it not for these forums.

Richard, you mentioned open fiasco. Do you have a network printer set as your default one? If you do, close Photoshop, open printers in Control Panel and change that to something not on the network. Then try Photoshop. That is likely going to speed up opening and creating new files dramatically.

If you have to print something, just choose a network printer from the print menu.

With regards to your other issues, you have something major going on there. How does your CS3 run in comparison, and has CS4 been like this from day one, or is this a new issue?

Erbs, Hugh, David, Dave and John, thank you for the feedback!

Im going back to work on the issue now.

[Guest]

Richard

Have you pointed CS4 at a 3rd party plug-in folder or installed any plug-ins that conflict with CS4.

That's known to cause problems like some of yours.

[Guest]

>open printers in Control Panel and change that to something not on the network.

adobe has a pdf writer free for download. you can use for this...

>at a 3rd party plug-in folder or installed any plug-ins that conflict with CS4.

especially if you point it at an older photoshop installation...

[_iVan_B__]

b BINGO!!!

I just installed Daemon Tools Lite, some 1200 fonts, WinRar and ran an HP update. Installed Photoshop, and it's slow again. So it's one of those things. Perhaps more than one; we'll see shortly.

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on a bad font due to the fact only some of you use Daemon, WinRar and have HP stuff, so I'll look into that first.

Don't go removing stuff of your computer just yet, folks. Let me see if I can pinpoint it first, and then whether removing works or if a format is necessary.

I'll keep you posted

[penderra]

When you say "slow", do you mean generally or just in pen and text lag?

[_ProArtist_]

I've noticed just flat out disgusting performance using the stamp tool. It just doesnt work right. Its so slow and delayed that after you alt click an area to define your clone source, that PS actually doesnt register that input. It will simply ignore it and use either the next place you regular click or the previous clone source.

Its so ridiculously slow that i'd rather eat my own face than use it.

[Guest]

Did you try resetting the tool?

[_iVan_B__]

Bad news. Two, in fact.

First, I realized that the reason Photoshop ran slow on my last test was due to the fact I loaded wrong hard drive image (the sluggish one). So it wasn't any of the stuff I mentioned in my previous post.

Second, this far into an install I realized that SP1 placed an important dll onto a wrong disk. Since it's a disk I regularly format, I have to start from scratch. Tried to find a quick solution online first, but Microsoft wants $$$ for providing me with a hotfix or "talk to your OEM" they said.

Called HP, but after 2.5 hrs on the phone with them, they ended up hinting they don't know how to do it, instead I should just reinstall the OS from scratch. I flat out refused, so she was going to hook me up with remote assistance.

RA session was being blocked by security settings in iExplorer so she asked me to start turning on some real nervous checkboxes in the settings panel. Sure enough, that screwed the browser up to the point I couldn't see the buttons she was telling me to press.

Just around the time I realized she had no idea what she was doing (she was trying to tell me how I can't run more than 2 hard drives in my machine @ one point), we got disconnected.

Another day wasted.

Now I'm PO'd! I'm starting from scratch now, and Im determined I am not going to give up.

EVER!

At least I know what steps I can simply blast through; I don't have to create so many images along the way.

That CS5 is looming, though...

[shoot_me_now-d3u3se]

I'll chip in 5 bux for a plaque in commemoration of your efforts.

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

CS4. Maybe not a disaster, but certainly a hardship.

The more I use it, the less I like it. My workflow is busted big time by all the glitzy stuff added. For instance, the Layer Menu: Why do I have to use "Show All Menu Items"? Over 50% of all the Layer items I use are buried under that button. Rises neear to 100% if you factor in the ones I use constantly. What a waste, and what a gumption drain.

The palettes. Cripes, I hit (after hitting "Show all..) Curves and I get a second palette, offering me a bunch of alternatives. If I want Vibrance I'll choose Vibrance. I want Curves dammit! An Extra step and time wasted. Gumption drain again.

Then there are the imports from CS3. None for Custom Curves, yet, thankfully, my hot key arrangement followed over.

I can go on, but I'll stop here. Maybe I'll have to write all this in the Suggestions thread.

Oh, the one redeeming quality so far is Auto Tone. It saves me from going back when I go too far at the beginning. Is it worth the extra money? Not if I have to migrate back and forth between CS3 and 4 to get my work done.

Speaking of migrating, you have to outsmart the default settings that wants you to use CS4 automatically. More time wasted.

The beat goes on....

The gumption being drained is the one that would lead me to spend the money. And fight the installation.

[_Kay_R_Richardson_]

bump please help.

i just got a new computer and i reformatted it so computer is clean. quad core 4gb ram 512mb 9600GT and CS4 is so slow. CS3 runs faster on a lot slower computer. newest drivers for everything...what's the fix?

i've been reading the forums and no one has a fix :(

[Guest]

Kay,

XP or vista 32 bit or 64 bit

why did you have to reformat a new computer for?

Did you update directx from the microsoft website?

Scratch disk on a seperate drive?

[_ProArtist_]

Kay, that is correct. There is no fix yet. There really is nothing "WE" can do. This fix requires Adobe to dig deep into the code and figure out why performance is so poor compared to CS3.

That is why we have no fix. It takes time. Adobe is working on figuring out exactly what is going on. They were active on the forum from the start of all of the complaints and now it appears they're a little less active on the forum... perhaps because they're being active in the office and figuring this out.

So i would say to everyone to continue to post their problems and experiences regarding performance.

CS4 is a radical change for Photoshop. Adding GPU display code, more than likely required a lot of changes in the PS code that introduced many problems.

I would say its not worth "reformating your system" over. Its more so about waiting for Adobe to fix the program.

In the meantime... CS3 works well. Wait for the CS4 update.

[_Scott_XC_]

>...the Layer Menu: Why do I have to use "Show All Menu Items"?

Look at the upper right hand corner? Are you in the "basic" workspace? If so, change it to "essentials" or something else.

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

Essentials uses up a huge amount of screen real estate, so Basic it is.

Look, again, CS3 does a better job.

[Guest]

Larry

> Essentials uses up a huge amount of screen real estate

So make and save your own Workspace. It will always appear by default if you have the appropriate item checked in preferences.

Also, just customise your menus and save the set. You can also suppress the ones you never use and add colours to the ones you want to pick out quickly.

Menus and panel/palette visibility can be set independently to your own taste.

This isn't new in CS4!