PS 23.3.1 hardly releases RAM?

[Signfeld]

I'm new to Win 10 and looked in its Task Manager to check how much RAM PS was using.

When I had it around 9 GB, I closed my three opened documents and it only went down to ±8.5 GB.

Does it only start releasing when it runs out of assigned RAM (I have that around 12 GB), or is that some kind of bug in PS or Win 10? (I also noticed PS sometimes disappears from the list in Task Manager)

AFAIK, this behavior also happens for the scratch disk file, but is considered "normal" — it only grows.

[Derek Cross]

You really need at least 16GB of RAM and plenty of spare hard disk capacity.

[Signfeld]

I have 32 GB, but I assigned 12 GB to PS.

The second sentence relates to the first 😉

[D Fosse · Accepted solution]

This is by design, and it has always been like that throughout PS history.

RAM is not released while Photoshop is running, it is reused. This is much faster and more efficient than requesting it from the OS all over again.

This is why you have that slider in Preferences. Set it so that you leave something for other applications and processes. 70-80% should normally be optimal (depending on how much you have installed).

[davescm · Accepted solution]

The RAM behaviour is normal and has worked that way for years.  One of Adobe's staff once explained that it was for speed and was to prevent Photoshop going back and forth requesting RAM and giving it back then requesting......... etc.

Scratch disk does rise and fall but I would normally recommend having at least 100 GB free space available on the scratch disk. I do occassionaly see it rise higher.

Dave

[Signfeld]

Ok, I was open to it being a clever system. Thanks for reassuring me 🙂

I haven't used PS since Adobe locked me out in Win 7 around June last year. I seemed to remember it behaved differently there in the Task Manager re. RAM, but I could be wrong...