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thervnkings
New Participant
February 13, 2018
Answered

Photoshop Black Screen?

  • February 13, 2018
  • 10 replies
  • 118164 views

Hi there,

It seems that every time I boot up Photoshop, it opens as a black screen. The bar with file, edit etc is there but the rest is black. When I try to open a new or old file, the screen remains black. I've tried using older versions, to no avail.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

10 replies

New Participant
January 26, 2025

Understood re: Black screen frustrations.  To correct try the following steps. 

1. Top menu select EDIT. 

2. Choose last option on the list called PREFERENCES.  Click.

3. Click on option #2 under General select INTERFACE. 

4.  You will now be in the "Appearance" screen, see COLOR THEME options.  Select the WHITE BOX.   Then OK.  

Should help and/or correct your black screen issue. 

DM R
New Participant
January 27, 2025

Not the problem I was having – it was a GPU video processor glitch, not a prefs issue.  Also, solved FOUR years ago – Adobe figured out the issue and fixed it in an update of PS.

New Participant
March 21, 2023

I was having the same problem but i fixed it.

 

Go to  window>>workspace>>Essentials

if your essentials is checked, choose another workspace and check essentials again 

 

it should work 

New Participant
December 20, 2020

i feel so defeated. i've been trying to fix photoshop for three days now. this is my situation; i don't have my laptop with me (mac laptop 2015, that's all i remember about the laptop) and that's where i usually, with no issue, use photoshop but i'm currently across the county using my sisters laptop (macOS Catalina version 10.15.6) and upon downloading photoshop onto this computer i had a full scratch disk issue that wouldn't even let me open photoshop it would just automatically tell me the disks were full which i just fixed by clearing up some space and now that i can open up photoshop the only thing that pops up is a blank, black screen on photoshop. so i uninstalled and attempted to reinstall photoshop when i realized that when i tried opening up cc it was just a black white screen! what. do. i. do. i can't access cc or photoshop. when i try to access cc through safari or chrome it redirects me to the desktop app that i can't. access. please help me i have a job i need to survive 

New Participant
December 20, 2020

Hello! I recently had trouble opening adobe photoshop because whenever I boot it, it opened a black screen instead. I had no idea how to fix this but I managed to get help from adobe team by going to https://helpx.adobe.com/au/support.html?promoid=RGJ8NLP8&mv=other and go to the top right where it says 'support' and click 'contact us'. From there, adobe team can help in any way shape or form. I hope this helps because I was struggling a lot trying to figure out how to fix photoshop.

New Participant
November 5, 2020

GPU - Nvidia GeForce 2080i RTX

CPU - Intel i900 Coffee Lake

Ram - 16 Gb

 

New Participant
November 5, 2020

Here is a shot of my screen opening a current PSD file.

 

New Participant
July 3, 2020

I just opened up the performance window from preferences & pressed OK without making any changes & it worked !!!! Strange !!!!!

Known Participant
October 20, 2020

I just updated PS to vers 22 today.   Got this black screen issue.  First time I've ever seen it.   After reading here I checked Nvidia for new Studio Drivers and there was a new one available as of today 10/20/20 and it is suggested for the new versions of Adobe apps specifically.  Glad this thread exists, thanks.

Known Participant
October 22, 2020

Update to my previous.   After the Graphics card update PS only worked for one day.  The next day right back to black screens.    Luckily I chose to keep the prev PS version installed  (21.2.xxx whatever) which never black screens, but this is getting silly.

 

Operating system:  Windows 10 pro Vers 2004  OS build 19041.572

Intel Xeon / Hp workstation

Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce 2070 Super.   
Nvidia Studio Driver  vers  456.71 (meant specifically for Adobe apps)

RAM: 32 GB 

New Participant
May 24, 2020

I have this same problem how did it work for you? When I open up photoshop all it comes out is a black screen with the settings at the top:( HELP!! 

PECourtejoie
Community Expert
May 24, 2020

Hi, if on a Pc: did you try the link give higher up?

This issue is often caused by conflicting GPU drivers, see step 7 in this help document: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/troubleshoot-gpu-graphics-card.html#GPUandgraphicsdrivertroubleshootingsteps

DM R
New Participant
June 17, 2020

Can't get to the Prefs in Photoshop because the SCREEN IS BLACK. This is totally unacceptable. 

Participating Frequently
April 12, 2020

For anyone else that couldn't fix it by doing all the options suggested, I was able to fix mine by logging out of creative cloud then opening up photoshop & signing it again & it was corrected

New Participant
May 4, 2020

Im still having trouble with mine and nothing has worked so far unfortunately.

New Participant
May 4, 2020

Yeah I really need help nothing worked

c.pfaffenbichler
Community Expert
February 14, 2018

Does turning off »Use Graphics Processor« in the Performance Preferences (Photoshop > Preferences > Performance > Graphic Processor Settings) and restarting Photoshop have any bearing on the issue?

Are Photoshop and OS fully updated?

What have you done for trouble-shooting so far?

Restoring Preferences after making sure all customized presets like Actions, Patterns, Brushes etc. have been saved might be a good starting point:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/basic-trouble-shooting-steps.html

thervnkings
New Participant
February 16, 2018

Hi there,

Thanks for your response! I've turned off the Graphics Processor which is a NVIDIA GeForce 940MX. Sadly nothing seems to have changed even on restart. I've also restored preferences and restarted too. Again, still met with a black screen.

Here's a screenshot if that helps. All of my brushes are saved and I don't really have any preferences yet either since I've been using the app as a hobby. I've updated the software from the Creative Cloud, but that hasn't changed anything either.

Hope this helps?

Correct answer
February 16, 2018
JJMack
Community Expert
February 13, 2018

add to this list anything else you might  think is pertinent

Supply pertinent information for quicker answers

  • The more information you supply about your situation, the better equipped other community members will be to answer. Consider including the following in your question:
  • Adobe product and version number
  • Operating system and version number
  • The full text of any error message(s)
  • What you were doing when the problem occurred
  • Screenshots of the problem
  • Computer hardware, such as CPU; GPU; amount of RAM; etc.
JJMack
thervnkings
New Participant
February 16, 2018

Hi there,

Thanks for your response. So I don't know much about computers, but I've had a quick stalk of the HP serial and this is what I've got.

Operating system:  Windows 10 Home 64

Processor: Intel Core i7-8550U

Graphics Processor: NVIDIA GeForce 940MX

RAM: 8 GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM

Adobe Version: Adobe Photoshop Version: 19.1.1 20180206.r.254 2018/02/06: 1156206  x64

I honestly have no idea if I've answered you properly, but I hope this helps.

I've included a screenshot too.