Photoshop 2021 slow and laggy [LOCKED]

[adamt18510785]

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I'm going to start this new thread for the new version of photoshop. 
There are hundreds of comments about 2020 being slow and laggy and not a single adobe rep has even acknowledged it. I was hoping the upgrade would solve everyone's issues but alas that isn't the case. 

So this thread is for all you old and newcomers with new and old machines where photoshop runs like crap to complain about. Maybe their newest software might be seen for them to do something.  

I'll go first: 
Ryzen 9, 64 gigs of 3200 ram, 1080 ti gfx, 1nvme 3200mb.s ssd for programs, 1 tb sata sdd cache drive, 2 tb WD black for files. 

Photoshop takes almost 3 seconds to do simple things like changing to a shape pen tool to make shapes. 
Lags on anything pen tool, and type tool
Played with every setting in the performance and went through their pages on optimizing. 
I even went through the Nvidia setting but only gained a slight boost in performance. 

[fulkanelli]

I agree, I'm still working on the 20.0.0 release. Newer versions work stably worse. This is a complete disappointment. Brushes, working with large images and many layers is awful.

(Win 10, Ryzen5 2600, 16GB RAM, Radeon RX 580)

If these problems are not fixed, I will be forced to look for an alternative to Photoshop. 😞

[Guest]

I'm doing majority of my basic retouching work in Affinity photo.. now because of this Adobe BS.

I was skeptical at first but it works amazingly, so quick, opens & saves PSDs / TIFFs, a few things are different but most of the keyboard shortcuts etc work the same.

Honestly give it a try, I'm working quicker and quicker every day. This is how software is meant to run on decent hardware. F.U. Adobe!

[iana71313648]

I have spent the last two weeks dealing with an assignment on Photoshop 2021,  and I must say,  in spite of the incredible functionality of Photoshop (far more than I will ever use),  it is slow,  buggy,  and unfortunately doesn't like my GPU much.  I am running a top-line Precision Workstation, with a mass of memory,  SSD's,  etc.,  plus Windows 10 / 20H2.    In my frustration I downloaded Affinity Photo, and found a $40 app that is very fast,  and highly functional but will need yet another learning curve, but I will be forced to make that,  given the current state of PS2021.  I will keep my subscription alive while I am undergoing the learning curve to a new app.  And if I can accomplish what I usually do in Photoshop in Affinity, then its goodby Adobe.  So sad!

[mihail spil haufter]

I was cautios  updating so I did a test first and I can confirm . everithing that came after 2019 version is from bad to worse! I tried the 2020 version when it came up and  I got an  itinstant lag followed by a serious crash   I still use the 2019 and I'll stick with it .Is working ,is responsive , doesn't have any lags  even after havy usage  of  9-10 hours daily.I get daily adobe notifications to update to the latest version but I am sure that if I'll do it , that might also be the end of my adobe subscription and collaboration sice for me a day without working is a day without earning any money.. So I can;t afford to have the workstation crashed . 

[bhop73]

Laggy here too. Just using the lasso tool is frustrating.. going back to 2019 unless I need super resolution..

[bysea]

Good timing as I just received a Pshop survey from Adobe. I let them know that while it has some cool, new features, it doesn't matter because it's unusable for production work from all the issues listed in this thread. I hope they can resuscitate the beast and make it usable again. It's really the only Adobe app that doesn't work for me in my work-flow (ID, AI, Premiere, etc., all work as expected).

[adamt18510785]

Same, let them know exactly how I felt

[dimalique]

I've actually had problems with AI and Premiere as well. I had to go back a version, from Premiere 14.9 to 14.8 because 14.9 refused to allow me to add video clips. It would add the sound parts just fine, but no video. WIth AI, my curser had jumped every which way but where I needed it to be, and one update automatically checked "Use Wacom", which, since I don't, made it absolutely unusable until I figured that out. I still have problems moving nodes. All this, on top of a laggy and unresponsive Photoshop. I'm very, very unhappy with Adobe and their products right now. I'm paying over $50 a month for unusable software. I guess, on the bright side, I get to try out alternatives.

[rkarey@mybenefitexpress]

I also find Photoshop 2021 (release 22.3) unusable. Luckily I kept an earlier version around. Anything I do, move a window, change a tool, go to a menu item, takes 6-10 seconds of the spinning beachball before the app responds. This has been going on ever since Adobe released PS 2021. Every update I installed I thought might fix the issue but it didn't. I can't believe we're paying for this garbage! FIX IT ALREADY Adobe!

[eam94]

I use a macbook pro and Photoshop 2021 is really slow when I try and Zoom in and out. This didn't happen in Photoshop 2020

[nathanw41225989]

Also a Macbook Pro 2015 

2.8Ghz quad core I7

16Gb ram

Photoshop 2020 seemed ok.

Photoshop 2021 is REALLY laggy on zoom and when panning around the screen.

Presume I can un install and go back to the previous version?

[csscms]

Sadly, I too have found the 2021 update criplingly slow.

I've tried PS2021 on a 2013 Mac Pro 64GB RAM on OSX 10.15 (turned off graphics accelration and the other pref fixes) and a clean erase and install of OSX 11 on a brand new 8-Core Macbook Pro running 64GB RAM and 5600M Graphics.

Even opening a 60MB (yes, just 60MB) jpeg from the internal 2700MBps internal drive was painfully slow. And if I switched to the brush tool, the curser flashes between the Move and Brush tools... every... 3... seconds - amongst many other lags, pauses and freezes. We usually work on 5-12GB files so I'm not looking forward to this.

Something is very wrong with this release, not good enough sorry. Please get it sorted.

And for the love of God, stop advertising products and features within your apps, we're not consumers browsing a website.

[KiwiYankee]

Photoshop 2021 is totally unusable. Running latest 16" MacBookPro, 64GB RAM and Big Sur. Tried going back to 2019 and it provided new problems I hadn't encountered prior. Photoshop 2020 seems the best bet at the moment. Considering what I'm paying Adobe monthly for the suite I would think they would have sorted out any issues with Big Sur before release and/or provided updates to 2021 to sort it out. It's absolutely unusable! Please don't tell me about how a monthly subscription is better than a "purchased" copy. I didn't ask for this new bloatware version of Photoshop 2021. Thank goodness I held on to older versions.

[csscms]

I've scanned through various threads but there's no real info on why this release is so bad - I always wait a few months but it now seems that each year's release only becomes stable when next year's version is released. Truly painful.

[bysea]

It hasn't been stable for some time (at least 2020). I opened it up just now and did a "super resolution" on a raw file and it took about the 9-10 seconds it said it was going to take, and then it took another 20 seconds for any inputs to work (changing tools, mouse-click, etc.). Restarted, and same behavior - click, wait 5-10 sec, rinse and repeat. Fwiw, v21.2.6, which is still on my machine is no better. They're some underlying code issue, that, if/when they find it, will cure it, but until the, I think they should provide a discount on it. Has anyone ever requested a refund for this?

This is getting old quickly!

[Guest]

I think the major thing about this is that Adobe have been silent, no talks of compensation in any way, this isnt a video game, this is meant to be a professional tool, I and many colleagues are really being effected by this.

Because I am probably stupid I have done a full clean and reinstall.. still no change. 

What can we do to make more noise about this? 

[bysea]

They have a chat function, but it looks to be automated. I did find this number 800-833-6687 for help/support - may be worth calling. I found this in the CC Desktop app/updater tool under your account icon.

[KiwiYankee]

Thank you.
Cheers,
TerryB


*NP Solutions - Winning Attributes & Photography*34 Phillips Dr., RD3, Oropi,
Tauranga 3173 | iPhone (Primary Phone): 021 612 602 |
Android (Backup phone): 021 082 30692* | *terry.borchers@gmail.com |
www.npsolutions.co.nz

[Guest]

Just like to add that its been almost 5 months since this thread started and not a single thing has been mentioned officially from Adobe. This is a MAJOR problem. 

[dimalique]

Well, they probably figure we'll continue to send them money no matter how terrible the updates, because many of us have clients who desire their finished product to be in an Adobe format--it's the professional software, after all. Few can jump ship and only use something else. I'm extremely frustrated, because within the last five months I've had problems with Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and After Effects--all the programs that I use on a regular basis, and all with bugs that made them unusable (Premiere Pro wouldn't put video clips in the timeline. Illustrator automatically resizes the window 3x too big and the cursor jumps around, making it impossible to use). Nothing gets fixed, and problems get worse. Sometimes reverting to older versions doesn't even help, because the bugs seem to backtrack and versions that ran perfectly no longer do. Using programs in Adobe CC has become a useless and time-draining endeavor.

[digiguru]

Professional full-time designer and retoucher here. Still an issue in March 2021. I've reverted to Photoshop 2020.

I'm on a 2014 i5 iMac with 32GB ram, 1TB SSD and an AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4GB.

The computer is nothing special but can run After Effects and Premiere no worries, whereas with Photoshop 2021 I see the spinning wheel for a few seconds at a rate of every 20 seconds or so.

[MKSA]

How did you revert? When I go older versions it does not show me 2019 only the current version I have Photoshop 2020 (21.2.6) and the newer one 22.3 which I cannot use as High Sierra does not support it. Just spent 2 hours with support to no avail getting 2019 installed.

[hekselsior]

Absolutely frustrating. I had posted similar problems in the past but as usual no respond from Adobe guy. I came up here again just now since I got stuttering zooming bug that happen many times today already, that forced me to restart PS every time. This is really wasting my time.

I always have a good hope for recent updates that came quite frequent in the last few weeks, but only to find this PS getting worse. 

[csscms]

I've reverted to PS2020 and moving forward, I'll stay a year behind.

[adamt18510785]

I've been told Adobe doesn't care about this forum it's for the users not the devs, then gave me another forum with less people on it but still no answer. 

I think it's safe to say they are not going to address this issue becuase it's what happens when you have 20 year old code on new hardware. They are most likely playing the numbers game and are hoping that the number of users that don't have this issue are more than the ones that do.