Eraser is lagging suddenly

[#1]

Hi All,

I think this happened before but i can't remember how it was fixed.

My Eraser tool is lagging suddenly. I do a stroke and then can literally watch the hole in the layer create itself—even when 'pencil' is the eraser setting. I have pretty basic settings in my Preferences > Performances. I purged the history and restarted Photoshop, but no joy.

My brush tools are still sprightly, no probs there.

John

[#2]

Hi All,

I think this happened before but i can't remember how it was fixed.

My Eraser tool is lagging suddenly. I do a stroke and then can literally watch the hole in the layer create itself—even when 'pencil' is the eraser setting. I have pretty basic settings in my Preferences > Performances. I purged the history and restarted Photoshop, but no joy.

My brush tools are still sprightly, no probs there.

John

[#3]

Hi John,

That should not be happening, let's make it right.

Could you please let us know the exact version of Photoshop and operating system you're working on?
Also, could you please try resetting the Eraser tool and let us know if it helps?

Basic troubleshooting steps to solve problems and issues in Adobe Photoshop

Regards,
Sahil

[#4]

I had issues with the eraser lagging and realised it was because smoothing was switched on. I switched smoothing off and it works fine now.

[#5]

You just fixed my eraser lag issue!  I didn't know what was going on, but now I remembered turning on smoothing.  Just turned it off and eraser bahaving perfectly.  Thank you!!!

Jeanne

[#6]

Hi Sahil,

Actually it seems to have fixed itself. Not sure if it was because I changed some performance settings and it took a while to kick in or what.

Thanks

John

[#7]

Hi Sahil,

The problem is back—seriously lag on the brush tool now. The non-anti-aliased pencil tool is still quick and responsive and sprightly, but not the brush. I'm using a Wacom tablet (not a Cintiq), and it's also slow if I use the mouse.

This is worrying because I doubled my RAM last year.

I'm on an iMac, OS High Sierra 10.13.6

Thanks!

John

[#8]

There is no fix for this. We have been reporting brush/eraser lag for 5+ years and Adobe are unable to fix it. The only way to achieve reliable performance is to downgrade to Photoshop CS6 (last decent working version) or move to a competing application where bugs actually get fixed. Affinity Photo is a good option, other people are having good results with Corel Painter.

[#9]

It seems Ok now.  I hit reset on the brush tool.

To be honest, Photoshop is way bigger an application than I actually need for illustration and photo work. I'd switch to an an alternative that costs nothing or virtually nothing if:

A. I could be bothered learning it

B. I cold be confident that my years of PSD files would open perfectly

€60 p/m ain't bad for the entire Creative Suite, but I barely use any of it, and if I just paid for Photoshop (and Illustrator maybe) it wouldn't be much cheaper.