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.

[Chris Cox]

>> I think all anyone contributing here want is for Adobe to make a reliable Photoshop like they use to before CS4.

It's been getting more reliable with every release. We have the numbers on crashes, hangs, leaks, etc. -- it's getting better, not worse.

Remember: just because you experience a problem does not mean that everyone else is experiencing the same problem. It may be caused by something specific to your system or your workflow.  And to find and fix it, we'll need to know what those specifics are so we can reproduce the problem.

[julienlanoo]

@chris, agreed but there isn t any logs/crashreports for the problems every o e has that are:

- slugish ness ( better with 0.1 but not as good ad cs5.5)

- hanging tools : healing, stamp, brush ( idem as above)

> not all the time but happens a lot

- layers not updating when changing mode or when hiding them

- Bridge freezing up everything

- running less well after few hourd

- etc

So how could we report back more ?...

All computers ate new and top of line

[julienlanoo]

- i might add to this, unrisponsiveness, i find my self constantly clicking the desktop and clicking back into photoshop to get it to react ...

Those are things every user uses 95% of the time ..

And its stupid that a 15 euro app one can buy in the app store does it better...

Ok we still have cs5.5, but is that a solution ?..

[Chris Cox]

"sluggishness" is not a problem definition.

"This specific tool is slow to draw compared to CS5 on the same machine and OS, when I am using this specific document" - that's getting closer to a useful definition.

"running less well after a few hours" is also in the category of "not helpful" - please be more specific so we can reproduce whatever it is that you are seeing.

Again, what you are seeing is probably not the same thing that other people are seeing.  You've got to be specific, so we can setup a system and the documents needed to reproduce exactly what you're seeing (because the next best alternative is shipping us your system).  And you need to tell us what troubleshooting you've already done (removed all third party plugins, reinstalled app, reinstalled OS, updated video drivers from the GPU makers website, etc.).

We keep asking for specifics, and for reproduceable steps -- but most of what you see here is general griping without any information that we can act on.

Layers not updating usually means you have a GPU / video driver problem.

Bridge is another application, developed by another team, and has it's own forum.

[julienlanoo]

Isn t it faster to tell us what machine you use where it works perfectly on...?

One can t give a better discription than: overal sluggishness,

Do you actually use PS for what its intended to ?...

Not the same as the rest ? Well bottom line is whatever we try it doesn t work...

Remarkable is to, as i already said, i ve tried it on several different machines,

All have exactly the same issue,.. Strange that its my setups problem in that case...

Any way i am getting tired of discussing this,

I mean we can only tell people what happens and what we see day to day... I am not a coder... If you do not see these basic problems, this means you re not working lik Phitographers do, ofcourse when you test it with a 1mb image it works perfectly...? Try testing it with a 80mpix 16bitt image ...

I think there loads of info on previous pages and on the bet counting millions of posts on the same problems, fix it! Thats all, its easy to give the "its your system fault" ...

[julienlanoo]

So just tell us " what is the perfect, perfect machine to work with PSCS6 ?.. "

[julienlanoo]

Yet an orher good idea, its Fotokina next week, so Adobe will be there, in theorie on Adobe s own machines on their boot it should work fine,.. So lets test ...

[Chris Cox]

>> Isn t it faster to tell us what machine you use where it works perfectly on...?

AGAIN: NO.  Photoshop CS6 is working just fine on most machines.

You have a machine that isn't working well.  It's far faster for you to tell us what is wrong with your machine than for everyone else in the world to tell you what is right with their machines.

>> Do you actually use PS for what its intended to ?...

Yes, every day. As do millions of other users who haven't seen "sluggishness".

80 Mpix 16 bit/channel -- works just as fast as CS5, sometimes faster.

We've been through all the info here, and most of it is useless -- very few specifics, nothing we can reproduce (beyond the layer thumbnail problem that took months to get a description of).

[Guest]

I'll chime in and say Photoshop Extended CS6 has been running very slowly for me since day one, and continues to after the 13.0.1 update. In the file I'm currently working on, which is 1200x1200 @300dpi and less than 50 layers, just turning on and off visibility of a layer takes 2-3 seconds to complete. Complex brushes, smudge tool, etc lag behind cursor movements by seconds. Obviously this is greatly impacting my productivity.

My setup, which is not slow:

Mac Pro dual 2.8GHz quad-core processors

10 GB RAM

ATI Radeon 5770 w/ 1GB RAM

OS X 10.8.2

Two 7200 RPM SATA drives, both with 100+ GB available, Pshop cache set to the non-system drive

I thought perhaps Photoshop was having compatibility problems with the ATI driver since I had seen some artifacting, so I turned off the Graphics Processor, but it ended up being even slower.

The 'Efficiency' meter hasn't slipped below 100%, but it obviously has serious problems.

One thing I'll note that the smaller the window is, the faster the operations complete. If the 1200x1200 document I mentioned is at full-size, layer visibility toggles take seconds. If the window is zoomed down to 12.5%, those operations take on the order of 0.2 seconds. Of course that's not an optimal size for working with the document.

[Noel Carboni]

Brett, is the file in which you're seeing this 2-3 second lag something you would be willing to put online for others to download?  I for one would be happy to try to open it and see if there's something in particular about the file that triggers the behavior.  If it does trigger a bug I'm sure Adobe would like to see it as well.

-Noel

[Guest]

Hi Noel, unfortunately it's not a file I can share, but this happens with most any moderately-sized file with more than a few layers. When I get a moment, I will see if I can come up with an example test file.

[Guest]

Noel, I haven't had time to put together a test file, but this one is a pretty good example:

http://www.teehanlax.com/downloads/ios-5-gui-psd-iphone-4s/

Try setting the smudge tool brush to around 80 and brush around on the "White 4S Portrait" layer. It should start lagging behind your input by several seconds as you smudge. It seems to have no relation to number of layers or number of vector elements, for you can delete the whole Elements folder and the same lag still occurs.

I'd be interested to know how it performs on your system (and Chris Cox as well).

[Noel Carboni]

I hd no problem with the Smudge tool keeping up.  I turned it to mush testing that.

You don't happen to have [  ] Sample All Layers checked, do you?  That's known to slow things down some, and it doesn't have that much use, especially here.  And consider what it has to do!  This is a ridiculously complex, deep document and it has to go combine each pixel from data from all possible layers.

I tried it in Photoshop CS5, too.  Didn't seem much different, and checking [  ] Sample All Layers slowed it down to where it was more unusable than doing so in Ps CS6.

-Noel

[conroy]

Noel Carboni wrote:

I hd no problem with the Smudge tool keeping up.  I turned it to mush testing that.

Ditto. And my Mac is puny.

You don't happen to have [  ] Sample All Layers checked, do you?  That's known to slow things down some...

That did make Smudge quite unusable with Brett's doc on my machine.

[Guest]

Noel,

No, Sample All Layers was not checked. And as I said, deleting the Elements folder -- which contains most of the layers -- had no effect.

I've been using Photoshop since 2.5, so I'm not doing anything extremely dumb here. I have simpler files which are just as glacial.

[Noel Carboni]

Clearly you have a problem specific to your machine, then.  Perhaps it's the ATI driver for your particular video card, noting your comment about how the size of the window on the screen seems to affect it.

I can't begin to imagine what that is; it may be a complex bug or it may be something as simple as a setting somewhere we have configured differently, and it may be that a number of people share this problem.

All I can say is this:  Keep looking for a solution - it can work as well as or better than its predecessors.

-Noel

[Guest]

Noel, It's possible it is an ATI conflict, though I haven't had problems with 3D applications. I don't think it's an OpenGL issue because, as I said prior, I tried turning off the Graphics Processor and it was even slower.

I brought this up to Adobe engineers during the 13.0.0 era, and I was told not to worry, it was the thumbnail issue. Well, 13.0.1 underscored that it's not the thumbnail issue. I'm getting more than a bit irritated at this point, as I expect at a minimum that Photoshop be the speedy beast it has been in the past. It is not. I'm not saying the fault necessarily lies in Photoshop CS6's code, but I paid too much to be stuck with a slow product. I'm happy to work with engineers to figure it out. Is there a better channel for support than this forum?

[Noel Carboni]

I don't know of one, and frankly they ought to be falling over themselves to work with such an eager customer to get this squared away.

-Noel

[Adam Jerugim]

Brett,

Can you please email me directly so we can work on this issue?  My email is my first and last name (separated by a period) at adobe dot com.

Thanks,

Adam

[mikeh6]

@ Chris Cox

I have a problem similiar.  My viewer is not refreshing with changes.  If I move the pane around it refreshes or if I click on another and back to it it refreshes. The layer panels change as they should but the image display must me moved or panned ar manipulated before it will refresh. 

Any Idea?

cs5.5 dell laptop lots o ram and the Quadro fx2700M card

[Chris Cox]

>> .I have a problem similiar.  My viewer is not refreshing with changes.

So you have a different problem (this thread is about slowdowns).If the image is not updating, that is not the same thing as running slowly.

Also, this topic is about Photoshop CS6, not CS 5.5.

It really helps if you keep it to one problem per topic, so the discussion can stay on track.

What you are describing sounds exactly like GPU driver bugs that we've seen before -- and were fixed by updating the GPU driver from the GPU maker's website.

[julienlanoo]

Ok then , its my machineS, completely new machines,

You know whay i ll buy a blanco SSD today, make it bootable on the 12 core and only install PS, see what happens ...

[Noel Carboni]

Even though I'm not with Adobe I have to side mostly with Chris on this - this thread is one big bloat of people venting, with very little actionable data.  Plus it was started against 13.0.0 and it seems likely that 13.0.1 has solved many problems people were seeing.

• On the one hand, people expect very high quality and usability for a premium price, so you can't blame them for venting. 

• On the other, cutting-edge technology necessarily comes with difficulties. 

There must be a balance.

Adobe has taken the AMAZING leap of embracing the GPU, which is still in its infancy, to do something serious other than playing games, and THAT ALONE is responsible for most problems reported. 

It's reasonable that Adobe is requesting more info on problems - it's impossible to model every computer in the wild, and they're showing a willingness to try to make their product better (though JJMack makes the good point that there could always be more willingness).  Think about this:  Adobe isn't failing financially.  That doesn't happen by disappointing a majority of their customers.

Julien, I personally have a system that runs Photoshop CS6 overall just fine - as well or better than any prior version of Photoshop.   I know this is true because I actually have a number of older versions installed on it, and I can easily do comparative testing.

Yes, you read that right - Photoshop CS6 (especially 13.0.1 with ATI Catalyst 12.8) is MORE functional for me than any prior version I've had, and even faster to do many things.  Most importantly, I'm making the best imagery I've made in my life with it.

You want a specific description of a system that's running Photoshop fast and trouble free?  Here's mine:

• Dell Precision T5400 Workstation with dual quad core Xeon x5460s.
• 16 GB DDR2 1333 MHz RAM.
• ATI Radeon HD 5670 1 GB DDR5
• Two Dell Ultrasharp 2001FP 1600 x 1200 monitors
• 2 TB RAID 0 SSD Array
• 3 TB internal RAID 0 HDD storage
• 2 TB external backup HDD storage
• Windows 7 x64, adeptly configured and well maintained

This is a 2007 design system with a few modern parts.  Not exactly cutting edge.

You want to adeptly configure Windows 7 for best reliability and performance too? I've written a book on that.

(Julien or anyone) please name something specific you'd like me to test and I'll let you know exactly how it works for me here, even on multiple versions of Photoshop if you'd like.  Then we can compare specifics and maybe even discuss specific remedies to problems.  But I think the time has past for just repeating over and over again "it's slow, it's unreliable" like so many pouting children.

-Noel

[julienlanoo]

Ok then,

- machine at the photo office

( sorry i didn t work for more than 3h on the 12 core testing 13.0.1 as i have to do this between 24h o clock and 3h oclock since my video man needs it at day to finish our video productions )

So tech data

Mac mini, top of line

i7, 2.7ghz

16gb Ram DDR 3

555mb sec Kingston SSD

The heaviest graphics card i could click for this machine

Software: PScs 5.5 & 6 - no plugins- latest update

Capture one pro

Media pro

Osx mountain lion

Waccom driver

And eizo color  for the Hardware calib eizo

Dropbox= turned off while working PS

And standard osx soft mail/icall/safari

Problem:

While working in 80mpixs images from Phase One IQ 180 and 39 mpix images from P45.

Rendered from C1pro 16 bitt tiffs in Prophoto colour space

Problem discript:

Healing Brush - hangs for 3 sec after using it 5 to 10 times

Healing Brush - does only respond after 3-5 sec whenn swiching from stam tool

Stamp tool - idem as Healing brush

Layers - in a 10 layer situation when making an adjustment layer invisible and visible again to see its effect, ps doesn t show the action it takes 15 sec ...

Layers - when making a Group of layers file size 2 times bigger

Photomerge - takes aprox 5 times longer in cs 6 than cs 5, about 20 minutes for a 5 image stich at 39 mpix ,...

Ps&Bridge - when checking bridge, to see what i am doing is idem to what i did, and clicking back to Photoshop everything hangs, mostely freezing

Ps - when doing nothing ( getting coffee ) and leaving image open, ps uses 130% of processor at mu return for no reason...

After 20h of work - long long asl log list

Mini Bridge - after a few uses doesn t respont ( or Bridge freezes) - having to empty switch board file as result...

PS- loads of "not responding" notifications in activity monitor, resulting in PS having a hitch , after 1 min w8 ps works again...

Trasform tool - when transforming an image, Ps doesn t respond rightaway...

--- thats all of the top of my mind

Both in graphics processor Basic Normal and off mode ...

[julienlanoo]

" not risponding" notification is multiple times an image, almost after ever merge of layers, ...