Premiere pro slows down and lags when images are on the timeline.

[user9963696]

Hi there! Any image I put on the timeline, be it jpg or png, makes the premiere incredibly difficult to use. If there is an image present on the timeline, the playhead lags for a second before playing after pressing spacebar. Then when the playhead passes the image, the program monitor freezes and if I stop playback, audio continues to play for a few seconds. Every once in a while it's crashed the program.

The only way I've been able to work is to render preview over the images via in-to-out. I have tried uninstalling premiere, cleareing my caches, etc. 

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Windows 10

Latest version of premiere 22

[Richard M Knight]

Have you tried converting the images to PSD in Photoshop?

[Sumeet Kumar Choubey]

Hi ziwzih,

Sorry about the poor experience. We can get this checked. What is the resolution of these image files used in the project?

Also, share a screenshot of the Audio Hardware preferences in Premiere Pro.

Thanks,

Sumeet

[olivera16642850]

Experiencing the same problem on windows 10, latest Premeire 22, this is ridiculous problem to be encountering in 2022. 

[Vladimir24272714ccb8]

Hi There, 

I had same problem. If you still need help with this. Good solution for now is to save it as PSD and add PSD to the timeline, runs very smooth compared to JPG-PNG.

[Carmine22378869hlx3]

I had the exact same problem but only under very specific circumstances. 
whenever i was editing with a custom workspace that used two monitors i had this problem. What i found odd tho was that when i switch to a preset that only used one monitor it fixed my problem completely. so i just rearranged my "assembly" workspace preset to use two monitors and now the problem is gone. idk why or how this happened but if it worked for me it might work for you.

i also want to note that when i was experiencing the problem only the timeline panel was laging, i was able preview my video at full scale, add and remove files / effects and whenever i would click play on the timeline or jumped to a random spot on it, my preview would update in time just as normal, but not the timeline. Anything i did had about a minute delay to show up in the timeline panel but it was stillmaking edits to the video files at its normal pace. 

[ZZD27237427d5wm]

Did you ever find a fix to this? I'm having the same issue right now

[caroline_edits]

Sorry to see this issue, everyone!

We have a tutorial here with some potential fixes for choppy playback. Let us know if any of the steps listed here help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0D1uCKmNSQ

If it does not help, open your Audio Hardware Preferences and set the default input to "None."

• PC: use the toolbar at the top to go to Edit>Preferences>Audio Hardware
• Mac: use the toolbar at the top to go to Premiere Pro>Settings>Audio Hardware

Other community members have suggested converting the image to a .PSD if you have Photoshop. This should be a last resort, but if that is the only thing that works for you, please let us know.

[Josh306561665sft]

Hi, 

Thought I may add a little information here I have tested. 

I had a .webp image in my project files, even though I wasn't using it, it was interfering with animation, selection of items on the timeline and even slowing the load of the project to a crawl. Once deleted, everything was as normal.

[Josh306561665sft]

Back again, further information found. It seems there is a limit to how many images you can pull in. The webp was just the last component. As I continued and added more files, I tried the Photoshop file trick to no avail.

In the end, I placed all my images into a new bin, and the speed returned. 

[Aubrie330001303a7s]

I had this issue as well on PP 2023. My whole laptop starts to lag, I also see Task Manager that my CPU is using 100% (means it's working way more than it should). Then I had to check the size of the photo and it was massive. The problem was the size of the photo itself, it is way too big for premiere to render for playback. So, what I did was just to resize it through a free site on the Internet - and voila! It worked! I was able to finish my project smoothly. Hope this helps!

[harryc62504054]

Hi - I have this exact issue, with Premiere Pro 2024. What would you say was a file size that was 'too big'? I've lost a day/half day trying to work out why my timeline keeps lagging/stopping when it encounters a pdf that I've converted to a jpeg/png with Adobe Acrobat. Haven't tried to the Photoshop solution/conversion yet though. Thanks

[Wave Digital Arts]

It's 2025 and I'm still having this issue. Did anyone ever find a fix?

[Kevin-Monahan]

How large are the images, @Wave Digital Arts? How about your Sequence Size?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Wave Digital Arts]

Hi Kevin,

It happens with sequences of any size/complexity. The issue is worse with high-res images (around 20MP), but still occurs with lower-res images.

I'm working on an M1 Max MacBook Pro, which can handle high-bitrate 8K video footage perfectly fine, so it's really strange that it can't handle similar or even lower resolution JPEGs.

- Joe

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I'm referring frame size and no other image data, like MP. My old school workflow always begins before the edit by spending time in Photoshop optimizing images for use in video production. If you don't need to scale them in an animation, keep them at the native frame size of the sequence for best results. If you have 8K images, you need to be judicious in how large a frame size you'd optimize those for beyond the native sequence size. It's not only the images, it's that you are scaling them and animating them, etc., which takes extra processing power. NLEs have always seemed to handle images differently than digital video and can be a source of performance issues. I hope the advice helps.

Thanks,
Kevin

[tiagoliko]

"NLEs have always seemed to handle images differently than digital video and can be a source of performance issues." — isn't that something a developer would look at and say.. hmm how do we solve this? Because it's not in every NLE... just saying

I have the same frustrating issue, and the image sizes aren't even x2 bigger than the videos or sequences (nothing larger than full HD even).. I animate videos with no problem. I can't comprehend how 1 frame causes more performance issues than say, 30 frames a second.

As soon as i import images into a timeline everything lags and premiere crashes more often. I'm on a M1 2021 macbook running the newest premiere pro.

The fact that this thread started 1,169 days ago and we still have the same issue is deafening.. 

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hey there, @tiagoliko,

Thank you for your response. Let me see if I can help answer questions you had.

isn't that something a developer would look at and say.. hmm how do we solve this? Because it's not in every NLE... just saying

Thanks for the comment. I'm not a developer, I'm just a support guy with pro editing and trainng experience. This is a user-to-user forum. Would you like to create a feature request so that they can address your needs? Here is the link.

I have the same frustrating issue, and the image sizes aren't even x2 bigger than the videos or sequences (nothing larger than full HD even).. I animate videos with no problem. I can't comprehend how 1 frame causes more performance issues than say, 30 frames a second.

Oh, that is weird then. Do you have a sample image I can access? You can PM me, if you like. Sometimes the format of an image can cause issues.

---

@tiagoliko wrote:

As soon as i import images into a timeline everything lags and premiere crashes more often. I'm on a M1 2021 macbook running the newest premiere pro.

The fact that this thread started 1,169 days ago and we still have the same issue is deafening.. 

---

Yes, that's really not normal. I hope I can help you. Make sure to tag me in your reply. @Kevin-Monahan or PM me.

Thanks,
Kevin

[alex_9056]

Absolutely unacceptable and unbelievable that this is still happening in 2025. Hostile behavior once again from Adobe to its users. 

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hey @alex_9056,

Are you also having this issue with images in the Timeline? Let me know. I can take a look at the image or pass it along to devs. This is a user to user forum and they might not see this message. Hope I can help. Feel free to send me a PM.

Thanks,
Kevin