Photoshop takes forever too render...can I put it in draft mode or..?
September 1, 2022 4:29 PM Subscribe
I'm working on a chalkboard sign in photoshop. It has various font effects and colours, presumably (honestly, I don't remember...I made it last year). Anyway every time I make the tiniest change it goes unresponsive for 10-30 minutes. Sometimes a little progress bar comes up saying it's rendering text. This is ridiculous. I'm editing very little and yet it's taken me all day. Can I set the display on "look just give me an idea of the layout and when I want to see it full-on perfect I'll let you know"?
I have a 6 core computer with 32G ram that I picked out specifically for Adobe CS. Everything else always runs just fine. There are maybe 24 layers in this file. There's no reason it should run this slow. But it does. It has since I created it. It's 140K file. THis is insanity.
I have a 6 core computer with 32G ram that I picked out specifically for Adobe CS. Everything else always runs just fine. There are maybe 24 layers in this file. There's no reason it should run this slow. But it does. It has since I created it. It's 140K file. THis is insanity.
Have you given it to someone else to see if they have the same problem? Feel free to send it to me ion you want me to check it out. Have you done a Save As to a new file? Have you tried deleted layers to see if there any particular one that's the problem?
And are you sure it's a 140k file? That certainly can't be correct, and might imply that the file is corrupt.
posted by jonathanhughes at 5:02 PM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
And are you sure it's a 140k file? That certainly can't be correct, and might imply that the file is corrupt.
posted by jonathanhughes at 5:02 PM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: OK, two corrections...it's 140,000 k file. And it's 64 layers. I just memailed you jonathanhughes to see if maybe I can email you file and see if you find it slow.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:33 PM on September 1, 2022
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:33 PM on September 1, 2022
1. Is it a hard drive, or an SSD?
2. If it's a hard drive, check for fragmentation and defragment the drive. See if it helped.
140,000K is roughly 140MB. If you're reading it from all over the drive it will be slower. I/O to spinning discs is currently the slowest part of computer work these days.
Barring that - can you merge any of the layers? Perhaps PS is iterating through the layers, and less layers would mean less iteration would mean faster performance
posted by TimHare at 8:58 PM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
2. If it's a hard drive, check for fragmentation and defragment the drive. See if it helped.
140,000K is roughly 140MB. If you're reading it from all over the drive it will be slower. I/O to spinning discs is currently the slowest part of computer work these days.
Barring that - can you merge any of the layers? Perhaps PS is iterating through the layers, and less layers would mean less iteration would mean faster performance
posted by TimHare at 8:58 PM on September 1, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm not a photoshop expert, but there are a variety of things you can adjust in your preferences that might help you. For example, on the Performance tab, you can tell photoshop how much of your RAM to use. There are other setting related to file handling that might also help. (I don't know enough about these to make a proper recommendation, but there are many "Is your photoshop running slow? Try changing this" articles that I've seen.)
Be sure you're working locally, and not trying to work over a network connection, too.
Even if you can't merge any layers, can you hide a bunch of them / turn off visibility, so it's not trying to render everything? If you Option/Alt -Click on the eyeball of the layer you're working on, that will turn off all the other layers.
posted by hydra77 at 8:53 AM on September 2, 2022
Be sure you're working locally, and not trying to work over a network connection, too.
Even if you can't merge any layers, can you hide a bunch of them / turn off visibility, so it's not trying to render everything? If you Option/Alt -Click on the eyeball of the layer you're working on, that will turn off all the other layers.
posted by hydra77 at 8:53 AM on September 2, 2022
Do the performance issues only happen when you are working with this one specific file? If it works fine with other files, maybe their is some weird corruption in the file or the file specifies a preset or function, such as the 3D stuff, that is no longer supported.
Make a copy of the file so you don't inadvertently screw it up and work with the copy as you try to decipher where the problem is happening.
If the problem seems isolated to this one file, then, as hydra77 posted above, hiding all the layers except one and working your way through them all, each one in isolation—only one visible at a time—until you find a layer where making a change takes forever, then try copying the culprit layer to a new document, closing the main file to free up resources, and see if the problem follows to the new document.
What graphics card are you using?
Although there are a bunch of possibilities, it is possible that you are experiencing a conflict or contention with your graphics card. You may want to try the following:
• Open Photoshop, and with no file loaded, go to EDIT>PREFERENCES>PERFORMANCE and UNCHECK (disable) the "Use Graphic Processor" checkbox.
• Restart Photoshop and load the problem file and see if it is still hanging when you try to alter something in the file.
No graphics processor mode in Photoshop will be slower overall but you will likely quickly discover whether or not the graphics card, or, more precisely, the graphics card driver, is not playing nice with Photoshop.
Adobe does have a support page about slow performance, and, although somewhat general, it may offer some help.
posted by bz at 11:58 PM on September 3, 2022
Make a copy of the file so you don't inadvertently screw it up and work with the copy as you try to decipher where the problem is happening.
If the problem seems isolated to this one file, then, as hydra77 posted above, hiding all the layers except one and working your way through them all, each one in isolation—only one visible at a time—until you find a layer where making a change takes forever, then try copying the culprit layer to a new document, closing the main file to free up resources, and see if the problem follows to the new document.
What graphics card are you using?
Although there are a bunch of possibilities, it is possible that you are experiencing a conflict or contention with your graphics card. You may want to try the following:
• Open Photoshop, and with no file loaded, go to EDIT>PREFERENCES>PERFORMANCE and UNCHECK (disable) the "Use Graphic Processor" checkbox.
• Restart Photoshop and load the problem file and see if it is still hanging when you try to alter something in the file.
No graphics processor mode in Photoshop will be slower overall but you will likely quickly discover whether or not the graphics card, or, more precisely, the graphics card driver, is not playing nice with Photoshop.
Adobe does have a support page about slow performance, and, although somewhat general, it may offer some help.
posted by bz at 11:58 PM on September 3, 2022
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The file is only 140K? You don't say what resolution it is, but 140K is surprisingly small for a 24 layer PSD. Is the file corrupted? Have you checked the "Performance" tab in Preferences to make sure that the amount of RAM it has allocated isn't accidentally too slow? Is the scratch disk full (or set wrong)? Could one of the fonts be corrupted?
posted by primethyme at 5:02 PM on September 1, 2022 [2 favorites]