Photoshop Guides slow down the application/make the application sluggish and hard to use

[ragehenri]

There is a possibility that this has been an issue in previous version (2019 etc.) but at least in Photoshop 2020 I've experienced very noticeable lagging/sluggishness with the software when I have added guides to a document. The sluggishness is present in simple documents with few layers and complex documents with multiple layers, groups and folders. Of course, the amount of lag depends on the document size but even with a 1024x2048 document at 72 dpi with multiple guide lines, the lag is very much there, affecting even the basic manipulation of the document and even simple panning of it. I can't say I remember it being like this a few years back so I'm wondering what could be the case.

Also, it seems that the ruler bars on the side of the document are more buggy than ever and even those seem to lag when panning the document.

My specs are:

OS: Win10 Pro (updated over Win7 this year)

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.00Ghz

RAM: 32 GB

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (6GB)

[Virgil at Convincible]

Yes same

[kevin stohlmeyer]

Its the rulers not the guides. Make sure you have updated to the latest PSD update - it directly addresses this.

[Arlinsmiles]

I have this issue as well on the latest version and it is deffinitly the guides and not the rulers that are causing a slowdown. I have not found any other info about how to fix this issue. It is very frustrating. 

[Charles_Vane]

No it doesn't.

[njpaiva]

definitely the guides, not the rulers or the grid. This NEEDS to be addressed, super frustrating.

[Charles_Vane]

Same issue for me - it slows to a grinding halt whenever guides are visible.

It's been an issue for a long time but now its even worse.

Tried disabling rulers and it doesn't do anything.

This is ridiculous that something so simple is causing the entire app to become unusable.

[ryan ftgs89223883]

it's Aug. 21st, I just updated all CC apps, and this just started happening. It's not the rulers, it's not the grid, as soon as I turn on my guides I created, it's noticably slower and laggy. It's unusable on a lot of documents. 

I did just update mac OS 

[Arlinsmiles]

I was having this issue with version 21.2.1 so i decided to install an earlier version and that fixed the problem for now. However I noticed there was a new version 21.2.2 and thought maybe adobe had addressed this issue in this new update. It actually seems to have gotten worse! now not only are the guides slowing down the program but also the grids to a lesser extent. I've once again went back to an earlier version as a temporary fix. 

I am running windows 10 with latest updates.

AMD RX5600xt (latest drivers)

Ryzen 7 1700x

16gb ram

for me this is a new problem with the most recent couple of photoshop versions and it makes it unusable for my work. 

[yoshiw85885273]

I just ran the latest update and have also been experiencing significant lag when the grids and guides are enabled. Super frustrating. Also up to date on drivers etc. with sufficient memory and processor specs. I hope Adobe is quick to address this issue. 

[jkcrosby100]

ive got a pretty beefy PC and experiencing the exact same thing - its actually seizing up my whole computer its making much of my work pretty much undoable Im hoping adobe fixes this asap 

[deadpxl23]

Same issue here. Photoshop has just been so slow on my system for the past year I've all but stopped using it except when necessary.

Specs:

i7 8700k 3.7GHz

16GB DDR4 3200MHz

RTX 2060 6GB

[jane-e]

"Same issue here."

Does PS run okay when you turn the ruling guides off?

~ Jane

[deadpxl23]

Not at all. But it's a grinding halt when guides are on. Doesn't matter if I do anything about the aliasing for guides, or any GPU acceleration options, either. Overall PS is sluggish from launch, guides are just death to frame rates/response. Input lag, slow load of any file regardless of size, panning, hovering over buttons with no file open, etc are all sluggish.

[AlexPsSergeev]

try to change performance settings
Cache Levels and Title Size to smaller values

[deadpxl23]

I've tried all of these settings and it's made no difference. I have several scratch disks for plenty of space as well. And completely resetting all preference for the first time in several years still made very little difference if any. I might just need to find alternatives to Photoshop at this point. Every advice is the same thing posted on the help section, which I've tried. I have no performance issues in any other non-adobe product, game, or tool. Rather frustrated at this point

[MarcKleise]

It's definitely the guides. Everytime I open a document with guides the interface stops responding for a good 5 seconds and lags when it's done loading. Disabling the guides makes the lag go away but it's still as smooth as previous versions of PS.

I just switched from PS CC 2018 a few months ago and performance has degraded extremely with PS 21.

Also the checkbox for the guides in the View > Show menu always stays on checked even when I use the hotkey to disable them. Sometimes the view menu doesnt even show an option to enable the guides, but the hotkey always works for some reason.

I7 8700K

32GB DDR4 3200MHZ

Geforce 1080TI / 11GB VRAM

All SSD

[piotrp59073260]

Same here in 1080ti. It's impossible to work.

[piotrp59073260]

Reverting to 20.0.10 fixed all my problems. [Foul language removed by moderator] Adobe. It's a problem for a year at least.

[Bradley5E53]

Exactly the same problem here on 21.2.4.  Guides and grid make it incredibly laggy.  On Windows 10, 32GB Ram, NVIDIA 1660 Super.

[AYGTX]

Same issue

GTX 1650

20 GB RAM DDR4

512 SSD

Windows 10 Pro 

[Jhosep5C3A]

Its not the grid or the smart guide. Its the toggle On-Off autoselect option. when moving in X axis by pressing Ctrl it gets super slow while putin the autoselect ON. I would like to know if there is any option to disable that the Auto-Select box gets active when pressing Ctrl.

[jane-e]

There are some shortcuts that can be modified and some that can't. The Move tool + Ctrl has worked to select "auto" select a layer since at least PS6.0, many versions before "Auto-Select" was added to the options bar. It cannot be changed.

You can report the slowness that you are seeing to the product developers here: https://feedback.photoshop.com/ . Be sure to give as much detail as you can.

~ Jane

[Bradley5E53]

This is now no longer an issue for me so I guess recent updates to either Photoshop or the Nvidia drivers have fixed this.  Still laggy in other ways though (dragging sliders in certain adjustments, moving the curves etc..)

[yoshiw85885273]

Same here. The issues I had with lag seem to have been resolved with the
recent updates.