Photoshop CS6—many problems. Slow.

[ladri-bici]

I'm hoping someone at Adobe can address the numberous bugs and general slowness in Photoshop CS6.

Before installing (MacBok Pro 2010 Intel i7, 8GB Ram) I whiped my drive and installed OS Lion. So CS6 went on clean.

What I'm finding:

1. General slugishness all around.

Layered PSD files I was using just fine in CS5 are now extremely slow. An examle is a small (20mb) web design file. So it has many layers (maybe 200, not 2,000) mostly comprised of typographic elements—not many layered effects to speak of. Not many image layers, either. Layer folders are slow to move, folders can't be moved using the shift + arrow key consecutive times, making it difficult to move a range of folders xxx pixels to the left, for example.

Things that were pretty snappy before, are now slow. This is very similar to the problems I and many others saw with the initial relase of CS5—in the next version (12.0.1 I think?) Adobe fixed the issue.

2. Problems with type, example keybaord arrow keys stop working many times when toye is selected. Frustrating.

More of a general rant here, but insted of (at least in addition to) a lot of other 'features' like video in PS extended (why not use Premiere?), 3d, etc., it would be really smart for Adobe to make core elements work better: A big complaint among interactive desigers is that type renders so poorly compared to CSS html. Maybe this could be addressed, as photoshop is used for the design of most all websites.

[Guest]

No prob, fredaudet -- I think its just we all probably use PS CS6 professionally - I don't know that many who would purchase it for home use to (just) retouch Fido.   Not that we all haven't done it! 

[Astara_]

keltoid -- understand the questioning of word 'power user', that is  to say:  how would a power user

differ from a normal user?  Given how much PS costs to buy and how much more to continue to try to get the best product for our work, how 'casual' can a 'casual' user of photoshop be and yet not care about the price (there are likely some, but likely a minority).    

Paying for a premium product one might have some expectations of quality going up with each successive release -- both in terms of new features, but as well as the product takes advantage of new developments in hardware & software, as well as staying abreast of state-of-the-art image research and processing.   That's where Adobe has posititioned themselves by their desires and policies -- to be a premier leader -- but with that mantle also comes customer expectations.    So it is inevitable, that there will be tensions between how much Adobe wants to invest in product development and research (and does, as measured by quality of product output) and what customers want and fee is reasonable, given their proportionally and, relatively, equal  investment in the product.

The volume of feedback is a natural consequence of how well Adobe met customer expectations.

It will always be there and can only be looked at in terms of 'doing better, or doing worse'...

It sounds like PS6 has made a few (though limited), advances in adding vectorization advances to photoshop (like being able to have layers default to being created as vectors and gradients when possible vs. bitmaps, and/or allowing a gradient layer to remain so, even though you wish to draw on it (add a separate layer on top of the first automatically!.. it's what the user most likely wants instead  of  turning a canvas sized area into a bitmap just for the sake of adding, say a 100² pixel overlay in one area of a 4500² canvas. 

It seems like this is an area that needs more work -- since having a picture with many vector-based layers with vector-based effects is ideally suited to parallel processor rendering -- something that isn't being taken advantage of in PS5 or PS6....   Given the direction of hardware from Dual core to 6-8core machines from PS5->PS6, PS6 needed to be positioned ~ 3 times more parallel to take advantage of HW advances IF, they are going to add anything that results in a speed drop...   I.e. if they had full advantage of the extra cores, algorithms that were 30% slower would still be a net win on current generation machines, but hearing of results on 12 core 96G Macs described as 'disappointing' certainly doesn't show needed attention was given in those areas.   Maybe this might be a key element of feedback (not giving any less attention to regressions, of course...)

[Guest]

Alright. So, being "politically correct", let's assume, the subject of this discussion is just an issue that appears only in some "misfortunate" software/hardware configurations at only a certain (maybe, low) amount of users. However, can we count on any kind of software update with some kind of fixes related to the given issue? i.e. should those people with CS6 trials plan to spend a few hundred dollars on an upgrade, or should they save this money for something else, say, some vacation fund?

[Noel Carboni]

Anyone who's serious or passionate about photography, even if they haven't turned it into a money-making profession, and assuming they've spent thousands of dollars on camera equipment (as many have), would consider buying the best software available to support their hobby.  Photoshop may seem expensive, but it's in the same ballpark as a modest digital SLR.

Even considering people's complaints about bugs in Photoshop CS6 it is the best software for photo editing available today.

There are always people who have problems with a new release when it first comes out.  There are also a lot of people who find it to work just fine, and it's clear that those folks don't post online nearly as often to say "Wow, it works just as advertised!".  You hear primarily about problems here on the forums.

That's not to say I believe the Photoshop 13.0.0 release to be of acceptable quality. The one thing Adobe did that they COMPLETELY fell down on was to hold a public beta, then not feed fixes for at least the most serious the problems reported back into the release (yes, the release code was actually built a week before the public beta started).

I personally don't approve of releasing software before it's "done" (and especially not before the documentation is done), but it's entirely plausible that even a well-funded development team and test lab with the whole 9 yards of gear and hundreds of people can't possibly test for and anticipate how software will run for hundreds of thousands of users across the world.  Some manager therefore has to balance how "done" the software is in-house

A business-oriented manager might say that the decision was the proper one, given that to this day Adobe doesn't seem to have ferreted-out all the new bugs, and some income is necessary to keep the lights on while the bugs are being fixed.  Of course, a good engineering leader might point out in return that development of new software done right doesn't mean new bugs have to be introduced in the first place...  It could go round and round.

For those of you experiencing problems:  Hang in there!  The longer it takes for Adobe to release Photoshop 13.0.1, the better it's going to be!

-Noel

[JJMack]

IMO CS3 is better then CS6

[MikeKPhoto]

Have had this same argument, pushing the product out the door and fixing bugs later - but you have to do the math to see what is the more econimical approach in the long term. When I was in the IT world, one of our post incident reviews for a major release showed that over a two year period fixing bugs post release was way more expensive than getting a good product out the door. Staff were diverted from new products to fix bugs, regression testing was a nightmare, documentation never caight up and it whacked the developers morale.

That said, with many of the latest development techniques, Scrum type approach, there is much more of a willingness to get the product out the door and damn the torpedoes and fix the bugs on the fly - and to hell with customer satifaction - which in the long term can have a revenue impact, users that have been bitten will delay upgrades which will delay revenue which hits the near term bottom line. This can turn into a downward spiral as the impact to revenue drives a need to reduce costs whic means cutting corners, outsourcing etc, which in turn can either signifcantly delay new product releases, stick to the model and push sub-par products out the door faster - so continuing the spiral.

So the advice of "Getting It Right The First Time" really rings true

Just my 2 cents

Mike

[julienlanoo]

@ Noel,  i did never say PS CS6 haven't got good features,
I love the work environment, i love the new cropping tool, etc etc..

But as you said  your self, it isn't a finished APP yet;.. Now the argument is ok why didn't you do a trail.. Well i downloaded the Beta test, and i had some trouble with it, at the end of the Beta trail the only way to use the "official" version was buying it so i did hoping the Beta bugs were gone... ( no trail any more for the official version after using the Beta)... ( actually PS is not that expensive, seriously, for a professional and a tool one uses every day come on..

so PS 13.0.1 should have been PS 13.0,  as it should have been good from the start...  Now any way i am waiting hopefull it will get better

On the same matter,

I can not get my head around one thing, one "strategy" ,.. What is the use of filling up Photoshop with (on first glance i might have missed some thing) 3D and Video option, that's not what it's for.. For 3D you have Maya or 3Ds for Video you have Première or After effects...  The only use for this is in elderly people evening classes.

I am scared ( as a long time Photoshop user ) that PS is evolving slowly from something that did 1 thing extreamly well to something that does 50 things mediocerly well...  And that doing so much extra code work and adding so much "non" photographic options clutter a app that shouldn't be 2 GB but only 95mb ( it's an example not the real numbers)...

That's what i am scared of, that it's always more difficult to run because it doesn't only do photography anymore and the "non photo" stuff needs more power to run, but absolutely don't care about the other stuff..

Be honest, when i open PS 4 or PS  5 on my old G3 or G4, i can work on an image just as fast as in PS CS5.5 and faster than on PS CS6, that isn't normal we should be able to win time ... And OK Bridge is fantastic litle app , and the newer PS versions have usefull tools i can not do without, but basically we are going from a "Concorde" to a "Boing 747" because the strategie wants to put to much jabber in one app..

Where ass a workflow should consist from many apps working verry well together, so that every one can build his own way to work...  ( like before )

My dream / solution is thus having a Photoshop / app, that does ONLY photography, thus is small and nimble to run but has the same tool functions ( for photography) as PS .. All those  extra "useless" stuf gan be "plugins" to add to  your Photoshop core ( ofcourse with payment ), just like 3D max does or maya does.

but that a Photo soft is a photo soft and basta

[julienlanoo]

By the way, the bes memory i have from a Photoshop version was V4,  and V7,
But it might be nostalgia

[julienlanoo]

Also i don't understand why they were in such a hurry to release... As basically they have the market monopoly ( i am testing several other "Prof" photo editing app's, but at this moment, they only are limited soft and/or older versions, non as usefull as PS CS5.5 ),  So when you"re the only player on the field, why not take your time to do things well..

Can't get the point..

[Noel Carboni]

You make a good point - it's not like they didn't already have a product available for sale.

There is a school of thought that says the planned release date is king, and everything else is secondary.  This belief is generally held by business administrators.

Note my mention of "business administrator" as a fundamentally different thing from "engineering leader".  A business administrator will say having an engineering leader in charge is bad because the product will never be shipped and too much will be told to the customers.  The engineering leader would prefer to just make the product right to where the customers wouldn't need to be shielded from the truth, and that might take longer than expected (but probably not longer than the original estimate that the business administrator shortened) because some things just take time to do right.

Anyone who's worked in the high tech corporate world knows just how very right Scott Adams has it in his comic strip "Dilbert".

-Noel

[julienlanoo]

Yeah only the situation with users have changed now.
Buisness guys didn't look at the long run , but wanted my buck's ( euros ) fast ..

Only one thing, they would have got my buck's ( euros ) any way, as i Always update,

so if they get them now, and i am not happy, or they get it within 6 months or a year, and i am happy,  That's a hole difference,

As i am, for my studio, looking to other software or solutions than photoshop now, ( being fed up and maybe having the idea that something is out there i don't know about that's extreamly good or can be tweaked to extreamly good ) - as we have to streamline our workflow better to keep up with the workload... - A thing i would have never thought to do 2 versions a go , or even with previous version.

Actually we started testing other app's with the 5.5 version, this for an ergonomic point of view, as a "darker" workspace creates less fatigue on eyes ( better for my assitants ); But when CS6 came out i thought why not stay,  and now i think OK lets continue our search..

So Buisness admins are idiots, you get the users bucks ( euros ) anyway when they're happy and become fans ... ( certanly when you're the only big player)

For example it has been years and years that our small format 35mm cam's are Canons, Our Midformat are Phase one,  . I never drove any thing else than Merc, from my first car at 300 euro's to my actual car now, they have all been Merc , and i am not thinking of changing at this moment..

Even Look at what Canon is doing now, the sales person of Nikon is bugging us to buy Nikon the D4 or D800, don't care..
It has been YEARS , YEARS, YEARS now the 1dsmk3 is on the market, and it's still the flagship at canon, why change ? we're happy now we'll w8 untill canon makes something good before changing the older 1dsmk3's,  they're taking there time to do it good... Idem at Phase one, ..

Quality lasts

....

[Chris Cox]

>> a "darker" workspace creates less fatigue on eyes ( better for my assitants )

This is only true if you work in a darkened room.

You need to match the brightness of the UI to the target output (lightest for print, medium for galleries and general purpose, dark for video, darkest for film).

[julienlanoo]

And yes 1 photographer leaving might not be a big deal to a mega company.. But we talk to each other, a lot , and some are curious and try it out ( if something is found),  and with the internet, a rumour can become a "hype" real fast...  just twitter it

Warren buffet: " you need a life time to build a reputation, you need 5 minitutes to loose it "

[Astara_]

That's not to say I believe the Photoshop 13.0.0 release to be of acceptable quality. The one thing Adobe did that they COMPLETELY fell down on was to hold a public beta, then not feed fixes for at least the most serious the problems reported back into the release (yes, the release code was actually built a week before the public beta started).

Two quotes from two different folks... ^ Noel hit a major problem on the head at one end -- everyone trying to business like web-companies at web-speed.  Might work when yours software is on your own server and you can update problems on the fly under your customers.  But too much of the "Web-Release Beta" mentality has bled over into the into the 'Major-Release-driven' mentality.

Part of this could be because the economics of the web-only model are attractive,  but there are many products that don't work well way (yet), too much HW is required on the end-user's end and product releases need to be laboriously installed and applied.  We don't run off a web server. 

MikeKPhoto summed up:

So the advice of "Getting It Right The First Time" really rings true

At best, this is an unaffordable luxury, but the reality, is that as software grows in complexity, it's defect rate rises at some exponential factor greater than 1.  The more power you build in that can be used and interacted with by every other part of the product  implies some type of squared (or worse) type of relation.    It is thought that we don't have the technical ability to fly to the moon and back anymore -- we had it at a time when the complexity of our equipment was just on the boundary of being provable or not -- and even then with double-redundant building Apollo 13 happened  -- with more automation came more abilities to lift loads more quickly -- AND the Challenger disaster.

The problem is growth cannot continue at the same pace as before -- and until new technologies allow further multiplication of development at all phases -- design, implementation, testing, more time is needed to test   new features -- while companies are driven by past glory growth and stockholder price pressures.  Being prudent isn't what stockholders want -- and some have the attitude (trickled to employees, indirectly) that if you had time to test it well enough for it to be perfect, then you spent too much time testing.   Caught between a rock and a hard place!   Culture needs to change expectations to allow excellence to thrive.

[fredaudet_]

Good point from a user : why video and 3d in photoshop? Seriously, who would use PS for video editing when there's Premiere? Stay true to PS, it's the best tool in the world for photography retouching, a very good for digital painting and a fairly good web design tool. If I want 3D, i'll open Maya or Lightwave. If I want to edit a video or do a montage, Premiere or After effects will be my tools.

[Chris Cox]

>> why video and 3d in photoshop?

Because many users requested basic video and 3D support in Photoshop.

And because those do overlap with image work quite a bit.

Photoshop is used for a LOT more than photography and web design..

[julienlanoo]

exactly it's becomming "jack of all trades, master of none" ...

Actually where can you request things ? ...  is there a special ideabox form on the adobe website ?..

Also isn't that working the reverse way round?.. as i remember before switching to Photoshop on SGI and mac's i used a Quantel system and their Painbox, that was at the time realy realy realy smooth working and powerfull machine, because the thing was developped for motion picture and so photography was real smooth on it...  So what i ask my self is, " is the PS " infrastructure adpated to work with heavy loads of video ant motion? ... As i can imagine one will use much more calculating power in the photoshop way of working ( and video) than in the "final cut pro" way of working, with seperate masters and a editing file..  ( some thing the quantel also used for photos, LOVED that, as you were only working on a small file a few kb's big.. )

Any way, i hope that there will be a fix for things soon, as i 've tried every thing on several modern machines, 

( max 3 months old), All up to date, all loaded with ram, all with the latest drivers,  trying to delete logs constantly, i have no ideas anymore what to do...  , PS CS5.5 is there

[julienlanoo]

oooh, Bigger brush sizes and bigger feathers are a realy good idea in CS6.. to   pitty

[Chris Cox]

What logs are you deleting?  Unless you've got a serious system problem, no logs should be accumulating unless you specifically enabled them (like the history log).

[Skulltrail_Editing]

I hate cs6 i'm going back to cs5 or changing all together. you buy a upgrade and it is nothing but a problems

may sony vagas pro 11 is better. cs6, it just sucks!!!!!

[jeanphilippeZapps]

Hi,

First, sorry for my english i'm a french guy.

I can't agree with Mr. Chris Cox.

Because, if Photoshop CS5 working great with Mac OS X SL, Lion or Mountain Lion, why Photoshop CS6 don't ?

If Mr. Cox was very sure about what he said, sorry for him, but i have a solution.

And it's like a bug, really a bug. I'm a developper at my job, and i can't agree about Mr. Cox analysis for bug drivers or any other program installed.

Photoshop CS6 is very slow, and don't say again and again, the same things M. Cox, you know wrong or bad drivers, antivirus, background programs, etc... bla.bla.bla...

I do my test with a Mac fresh out of a box with nothing installed, nothing, just CS6. I'm trying on a iMac 24, 27, Mac Book Pro 13, 15, and all this Mac

have a SSD and 8 gb of ram. All the same bug, slow, very slow.

So, if i change just one params, it works like a charm !!!

Ths solution : GO in Preferences menu, then Type and select : East Asian

Restart Photoshop, and see the difference.

Like for always, like from the time i works on Director for make CD ROM, the same problem again and again... the render engine IS THE PROBLEM.

Adobe have a problem all the time with this !

The solution, change your developper's team !

have a nice day, i have to go back work

[Chris Cox]

So you've got some bad fonts installed or corruption in your OS font cache, and those are causing a slowdown on your system.

Try these steps to help find the underlying problem on your system: http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-fonts-photoshop-cs5.html

[rob_ashcroft]

Chris Cox wrote:

>> why video and 3d in photoshop?

Because many users requested basic video and 3D support in Photoshop.

And because those do overlap with image work quite a bit.

Photoshop is used for a LOT more than photography and web design..

What you say in no doubt correct, but the point is how many people use it for more than photography and web design. I would guess not very many. What percentage of your user base is professional/corporate and has a high-end need for sophisticated features such as 3D, as opposed to domestic users, such as myself?

[Chris Cox]

>> how many people use it for more than photography and web design

Quite a bit, actually.

And 3D is seeing quite a lot of usage from 3D and general design users.

And video is still ramping up across several market segments.

Just because you don't use Photoshop a certain way, doesn't mean a lot of other people out there don't depend on using it that way.

[rob_ashcroft]

Chris Cox wrote:

>> how many people use it for more than photography and web design

Quite a bit, actually.

And 3D is seeing quite a lot of usage from 3D and general design users.

And video is still ramping up across several market segments.

Just because you don't use Photoshop a certain way, doesn't mean a lot of other people out there don't depend on using it that way.

I can understand that Adobe, and most other big companies, want to continually develop new features for their products because it acts as an inducement for potential customers to buy or upgrade. But I sometimes think that features are often added partly for marketing purposes, rather than reflecting a real need in the customer base. A good case in point is the mega-pixel war between Canon and Nikon, which thankfully seems to have died down a little. Yes, there were initially benefits in having more MP, but only up to a certain point.

If you continue to add resource-hungry features to Photoshop the only possible outcome of that is that the customer base will have to continually upgrade their hardware and perhaps some of their other software in order to run Photoshop at a reasonable performance level. I don't really have too much of an issue with that as I'm fortunate in being able to afford a reasonable level of kit, and CS6 runs very well on my desktop PC. But a lot of other users are NOT in that position. I have been following the many comments in this thread, and if I sent my PC to some of the people who are having problems, and they loaded their Photoshop versions on to it, I'm sure it would run fine for most of them.

It's always a difficult balance, with anything, to get it right between giving out advantages and gains against the risk of some down-side factors. Medical drugs are a good example of that (illegal ones too!)