Why is my Photoshop so slow?
April 28, 2008 6:22 PM Subscribe
I have Photoshop CS3 on a fairly new Macbook and for the last few days it's been running unbearably slowly (it takes around 3 minutes just to save a file). Everything else on the Mac seems to be working fine including Illustrator and Indesign so it must be a problem with Photoshop specifically. I tried reinstalling it but it had no effect, now I'm out of ideas.
Photoshop also needs a large system page file (2gigs) is ideal.
In addition its scratch disk should have muchos space free (2 gigs again ideal)
On a mac page files are handled automatically, I believe, so just make sure you have around 4 gigs of free space
posted by mjewkes at 6:45 PM on April 28, 2008
In addition its scratch disk should have muchos space free (2 gigs again ideal)
On a mac page files are handled automatically, I believe, so just make sure you have around 4 gigs of free space
posted by mjewkes at 6:45 PM on April 28, 2008
Did you install Xcode? If so, you have access to Instruments, which is the OSX port of Solaris' insanely powerful dtrace tool.
posted by popechunk at 7:08 PM on April 28, 2008
posted by popechunk at 7:08 PM on April 28, 2008
In File > Preferences > Performance, how much is "Let Photoshop Use" set to? And how much memory do you have in the computer?
posted by kindall at 7:13 PM on April 28, 2008
posted by kindall at 7:13 PM on April 28, 2008
Oh, sorry, that's the Photoshop menu, not the File menu, that holds the Preferences now.
posted by kindall at 7:14 PM on April 28, 2008
posted by kindall at 7:14 PM on April 28, 2008
Response by poster: I have 10 gigs of free space and 1 gig of ram of which photoshop is using 685mb.
posted by Andy Harwood at 7:27 PM on April 28, 2008
posted by Andy Harwood at 7:27 PM on April 28, 2008
1gb is not enough. Your computer is relying on swap space in order to get by likely. More ram is the only solution. In the meantime, when you want to use it, try to make it the only running program.
posted by pmbuko at 10:08 PM on April 28, 2008
posted by pmbuko at 10:08 PM on April 28, 2008
for the last few days it's been running unbearably slowly
This makes it sound like the behavior is recent. Did it used to run fine?
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:47 PM on April 28, 2008
This makes it sound like the behavior is recent. Did it used to run fine?
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:47 PM on April 28, 2008
Also, processor type and speed would be good information to share.
posted by lekvar at 1:21 AM on April 29, 2008
posted by lekvar at 1:21 AM on April 29, 2008
Photoshop always slows down irritatingly, if it's looking for a network connection not longer available, in my experience.
posted by ijsbrand at 1:49 AM on April 29, 2008
posted by ijsbrand at 1:49 AM on April 29, 2008
If things were running well before then you need to look at what has changed. Is it your hardware, your operating system, Photoshop, or the file you are running?
From what you describe the hardware and operating system seem unchanged.
Have you tried opening other photoshop files that you have? Do they also run slowly? If the others are fine then you need to look at the one with the problem? Is it a lot larger than others you usually open? This could tie into the memory shortages described by others. Otherwise perhaps it is using some elements within that file which are causing Photoshop to struggle. Play around with it (after making suitable backups) to reduce the complexity and see if it helps.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 1:53 AM on April 29, 2008
From what you describe the hardware and operating system seem unchanged.
Have you tried opening other photoshop files that you have? Do they also run slowly? If the others are fine then you need to look at the one with the problem? Is it a lot larger than others you usually open? This could tie into the memory shortages described by others. Otherwise perhaps it is using some elements within that file which are causing Photoshop to struggle. Play around with it (after making suitable backups) to reduce the complexity and see if it helps.
posted by Gomez_in_the_South at 1:53 AM on April 29, 2008
I agree with pmbuko that you need more RAM. I use Photoshop CS2 and when I got a new computer a while back I got 4 GB of RAM and still wonder if more would be good. Fiddling around with the memory settings as suggested by kindall may help, too.
Before I upgraded I had similar problems, and it seems to me that Photoshop's speed can vary a lot depending on what you are working on (not just the size of the file, but how many and what changes you are making; some filters need a lot of memory) as well as with what other programs are competing for the memory at a given time, so those factors may be why the problem was not noticeable until recently.
posted by TedW at 5:21 AM on April 29, 2008
Before I upgraded I had similar problems, and it seems to me that Photoshop's speed can vary a lot depending on what you are working on (not just the size of the file, but how many and what changes you are making; some filters need a lot of memory) as well as with what other programs are competing for the memory at a given time, so those factors may be why the problem was not noticeable until recently.
posted by TedW at 5:21 AM on April 29, 2008
More RAM. I upped mine from 1GB to 2GB and the speed increase was surprisingly pleasing.
In the UK it's yours for £28.16 with a lifetime warranty from Crucial. A five minute install and there ya go!
Alternatively, you could spend a bit more: 4GB for £64. It only officially takes 2GB, but I've read reports of 4GBs working fine.
posted by Magnakai at 2:06 PM on April 29, 2008
In the UK it's yours for £28.16 with a lifetime warranty from Crucial. A five minute install and there ya go!
Alternatively, you could spend a bit more: 4GB for £64. It only officially takes 2GB, but I've read reports of 4GBs working fine.
posted by Magnakai at 2:06 PM on April 29, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by lekvar at 6:39 PM on April 28, 2008