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.

[_Paul_Budzik_]

Mark,

Those are pretty much my feelings and I returned my copy as well. I would have loved to keep it, but as I'm watching this unfold, there's no telling when it might get fixed and the problems are too pervasive.

One thing, Adobe makes it very easy to return it.

Paul

[_John_Umlauf_]

QUOTING MJ Murphy above:

"Moving images around the screen leaves a copy of the image where it used to be for a second. Very distracting. When I zoom in on a 20 MB image, in CS3 I can click the hand tool, drag the image around at will and it moves as smoothly as if I were moving a paper image around on a smooth surface. Cs4 is another story. As I click and drag I see a bunch of squares getting redrawn all over the screen. Very distracting."

SAME HERE!

AND: CS4 renders picture packages much more slowly than even 6.0 which is what I was running before we bought the full version of CS4.
CS4 does not take advantage of CPU power because it rarely uses more than 60% when rendering. (XP32, P4 HT 3.0GHz, 2GB RAM, dedicated scratch drive). Very disappointing...

[_John_Umlauf_]

P.S. DOES ADOBE HAVE A RETURN/EXCHANGE POLICY?

I would be happy to go to CS3 instead, even for the same money.

[_ProArtist_]

The ironic thing is... if you go into the liquify tool, its FASTER at panning, redrawing, brush responsiveness and it liquifize smooth as silk...

BUT when you go back into CS4 with or without GPU opengl enabled... Its so slow in comparison.

Perhaps its the fact that my desktop resolution is 2560x1600 (since i'm using a 30 inch monitor...

But i dont think thats it, especially when you factor in that with opengl off, CS4 is still far slower than CS3.

GPU on and off in CS4 is roughly the same slow performance. The GPU slows down the performance a bit more... but overall, the program runs nothing like CS3 did.

[Guest]

Is that 2560x1600 the native resolution of the monitor?

[Walter_Elias]

I have the lagging problem (and I have an Intel processor), but I wouldn't call CS4 a disaster. The rotating canvas (something Painter already had 10 years ago) removes my number one complaint about Photoshop as a pure drawing application.

I'm really surprised that in their beta testing, Adobe never encountered the lag problem, considering how many others like myself experience it now. Maybe their list of beta testers is too narrow. They should have done a public beta release like they did with Dreamweaver, and have thousands of testers.

I trust that Adobe has put top priority on solving this. Once it's solved, then I'll be delighted with CS4. Annoying, should have been tested more before relase, but not by any means a disaster.

[Kwan Parker]

Like others, I experienced lagging and momentary ghosting when moving images.

On average my images are 2 -3 megs and seldom larger than 5 megs.

Windows XP SP3
Nvidia 7900GS 256 (latest driver)
4 megs memory (3.5 useable)

For my purposes, slow response or lagging and ghosting was resolved by increasing the cache to 6, enabling OpenGL Drawing but unchecking everything in the Advanced Settings window except Advanced Drawing.

[Guest]

>P.S. DOES ADOBE HAVE A RETURN/EXCHANGE POLICY?

return for 30 days. call customer support.

[_Paul_Budzik_]

John,

Adobe makes it very easy to return CS4. However, they won't sell anything CS3 since CS4 has been released. If you want CS3 you need to check with Amazon or some other third party vendor.

Paul

[_J_Maloney_]

[ed]

[_Paul_Budzik_]

Thanks J
I fixed it.

[PECourtejoie]

For troubleshooting, all users affected should maybe give more info:
Screen Resolution; for each screen if there are several.
Videocard type; brand; firmware version; Driver version
CPU type, speed; motherboard; amount of memory
Windows version, peculiarities (window blinds, anti-virus)
Photoshop settings: Cache, amount of ram allocated, what Open Gl settings etc.
How does the issue appear, when (immediately?)

[_ProArtist_]

yes, the native resolution of 30inch LCD's is 2560x1600

[_ProArtist_]

David Nicol,

I agree with you, the rotate canvas tool is awesome... as are all of the new features. I'm not saying the features are a disaster, but the quality of programming and performance of photoshop CS4... that is the disaster. With GPU, this program should be lighting quick... Without GPU it should be lighting quick. 🙂 Its neither... However CS3 is lightning quick without GPU! So CS4 introduced GPU support but the performance is worse than the old display code they were using in CS3!!! Whats the point ?

And its not the GPU, because in software display mode in CS4... its almost as slow as with GPU... and its still far slower than CS3 was.

Do i think they can fix this? Sure... When? I dont know. But why was it released this way? And what is the real cause for this severe problem?

I'm glad there are trial versions.

Please dont tell me its because us 30inch guys run at 2560x1600 because that would be an entire industry of graphic artists.

I cant even use the stamp tool effectively. Its too slow to register my "alt click clone areas" Often it misses the fact that i chose a new area of the image to clone because its lagged. The Curve editor is terrible now. The sliders in just about all of the color correction ui's are very unresponsive. Brush Strokes start out smooth but if you draw a long stroke, they lag greatly. If you draw fast strokes, its lagged. If you switch layers on and off, you can see them litterally redraw slow on screen. Its all a lot slower than CS3. Again check the liquify tool. It uses the old display code, and its far faster than regular painting or panning an image inside CS4.

The system i tested on...

Intel QX6700 (quadcore extreme)
Intel D975XBX2 motherboard
Nvidia 8800GTX
8GB Ram
Latest Nvidia drivers (I also tried running the newest beta drivers)
HP 30inch monitor - Native resolution 2560x1600
Wacom Intous 3
Local Raid 0 (sata)
Vista 64bit.

[_Adam_Jerugim_]

Ok, here's another data point I need: are people who are experiencing the lag using a tablet?

If so, do you have the latest drivers?

Also, do the performance problems continue if you use a mouse instead of a tablet to drive the PS UI?

This information would be very helpful for those of us investigating this problem.

Thanks again,
-Adam

[_Derrick_Moore_]

No tablet here.
Adam, have you guys not been able to reproduce the lag at Adobe?

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[_Paul_Budzik_]

No tablet installed

[Walter_Elias]

I'm using a Wacom Intuos 2 with the latest driver. But I get identical performance problems whether I use the mouse or the tablet. On my second computer, I use an Intuos 3. Same thing, identical whether using mouse or tablet. Both systems are Win XP SP3. One is single monitor 1920x1200, the other is dual monitor 1600x1200.

[PECourtejoie]

Pro Artist, "Latest" is almost meaningless, please state the exact version, maybe also the firmware version of your videocard.
Some other users reported a big bost when updating directX, don't know if it is related.

Please give all info that Adam requests.

[Guest]

Adam/Chris

Another factor in some aspects of the lag may be file size and number of layers. I know some users use huge files and dozens (or hundreds) of layers.

I know some symptoms of the lag also occur independently of these factors but everything needs to be taken into account.

[_Mike_Delivre_]

Not using tablet on my MSI m670.Never had troubles with CS3, but in ver4 met:

1) slow working
2) already mentioned, brush round disappears, leaving small part - no way to define where you're painting >(
3) in PNG "Save for web" dither and color masks disappeared
4) interface got worse and tabs names take more space, and there's no way (tick) to stop menus from hiding some

Btw, InDesign isn't better also ;)
God bless I've tried the trial first. Will be looking for CS3 again.

[_Adam_Jerugim_]

Not yet. Just spent the morning setting up a fresh XP Sp3 box. I'll spend the day cycling video cards in and out of the box to see if I can repro (starting with the cards people have reported as problematic).

[_Derrick_Moore_]

Thanks for the prompt replies, Adam.
I installed CS4 on another machine today and get the same zoom and text
lag - Quadro NVS 280

[_Wayne_G__Robinson_]

Disaster? I'm of two minds:

The retired system engineer in me is delighted that there are so many defects on which to do problem determination. What's delightful is the complete unreliability of the PS (and Windows) code. Sometimes you do A, B, & C and X happens; sometimes not. The two areas I have in mind are the new GPU 'support' and the old as the hills but still unreliable pen pressure support. Adobe can't make the new functionality right and can get the old functionality to work reliably. A techie's dream - a complete mess.

The professional photographer in me is completely appalled. I'm spending so much time with the tools that I'm getting very little real work done.

I do wish that Adobe & Microsoft (among many) were less interested in speed and ever so much more interested in quality. Any bug in a shipping product that can be completely described in ONE simple, short sentence means that they just don't care (or aren't up to the work at all).

How about more engineers and many, many fewer pieces of suited overhead.