Photoshop: CS6 Slow compared to CS5.1 with large files

We are investigating - but there are known causes of slowdowns (ATI drivers, Norton, etc.) to factor out.
And it really is a small percentage of users seeing such a slowdown - so, yes, the problem is most likely something local on your system (another app, utility, driver, etc.).

Small percentage or not......I UPGRADED to a product that clearly has a bug and is causing worse performance.

Adobe has provided a few workarounds (thanks).....and clearly this has to help diagnose the issue.....now I'm hoping they don't let this issue lag.

And BTW....I experience this on my Mac Pro 2010 with the ATI 5780.....while my files have a lot of layers.....they aren't huge in file size (190 MB) or dimensions.

-Kevin

It is not clear that this is a Photoshop problem - we've already found several external causes of slowdowns. We know of a few things in Photoshop that have slowed down, but they're very limited (like dragging many layers), not across the entire app.
That's why we're investigating (following up with users who can reproduce the problem, and factoring out all the known causes, then isolating the real issues).

excuse me, but i am reproducing the problem each time i try to use CS6?!:)

So after looking at this thread I see both Windows and Mac cases, as well as both NVIDIA and ATI.

So how is this not a Photoshop problem?

And how is it that when I select the Channels tab...the problem goes away?

-Kevin

It's got to be related to Layers. And again, I keep saying this...

"Mac Book was 2 days old with only CS6 and basic Mac OS Lion apps installed - no configurations done, no Norton" but yet I've been noticing the issue since the first use.

And why would turning off Layer Thumbnail Previews help the issue if it's a system problem and not related to Photoshop?

I think the issue here is that the "majority of users" who are not reporting issues like this are the ones that are using Photoshop for small tasks and not creating files with 50+ layers that have large canvas sizes.

If Adobe is willing to support a downgrade from 6 to 5 (I upgraded from CS4) I'd be willing to take it and call it a day.

Then you're probably just seeing the layers thumbnail slowdown, a very isolated thing, and not a whole app slowdown as claimed.

Mr. Cox, thank you for your attention to the matter. As you can tell from the above, bug-squishing is a big deal for users who use your applications everyday, all-day and I think I speak for all when I say your willingness to address our issues in a timely manner means a lot to us. It saves us time, aggrivation, and money; which in the end, makes your product more valuable to us.

For me, it seems to be particular files - or particular elements of larger files that CS6 doesn't play nice with - like vector smart objects with blend modes...it seems to be excessively slow on dragging them

Alex, I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet; hang in there and see if you can use cs4 for larger comps and any features you need in the interim (while its being fixed) you can do in CS6 and save with maximize compatibility.

I wont lie to you, there are other bugs in CS6 that I have definately run into and can reproduce (probably on any computer), but overall there are some good improvements in CS6.

The "layers thumbnail slowdown"?

So this is a known issue?

You are correct....it doesn't slow down other aspects of the app....but it sure slows down what I DOING in the app. I can't move a simple text layer without it being choppy...unless I turn off thumbnails or change palettes.

I sure hope Adobe realizes this is new in PS6....and that it IS a big issue that needs to be corrected.

Please don't make me regret my upgrade.

-Kevin

That's fair to say. I guess it's just that pretty much all day, every day I'm working with files that have multiple layers and I constantly need to move, duplicate, remove or merge them so it's unrealistic for me to switch to the Channels menu. I've already turned off Layer Previewing but it only improved performance of this a tad. If Layer slowness is something Adobe is willing to inspect further I'd be willing to stick it out and wait a bit longer.

If you turned off layer thumbnails, then the thumbnail problem is gone. Any additional slowness is something else.

Chris,

So Adobe is aware of a "thumbnail problem" within PS CS6?

Is this being addressed for a future update?

-Kevin

That was already discussed in a couple of other topics. We are pursuing fixes to the issue. In the meantime slowdowns when moving a lot of layers can be worked around by disabling thumbnails in the layers palette preferences.

Glad to hear it. But to clarify, turning off Layer Thumbnails *slightly helps* increase the speed and performance but it's still far slower than CS4 and 5 to work with layer groups and even to open, save, close and zoom in/out of a larger file that contains many layers.

Turning off the Thumbnails fixed the speed issue with large files and working with layer groups for me. HOWEVER that only goes to show you where the problem might be. I certainly hope Adobe takes this serious and fixes it ASAP. BECAUSE turning off the thumbnails is NO SOLUTION I cant work without the thumbnails =(. So until this gets fix I have to deal with this issue unfortunately =(.

I sure hope Adobe considers turning off the thumbnails a "temporary workaround".

-Kevin

Unfortunately there is no alternate artwork available.

I just tried this also and had good results. Lowering the cache levels to 2 does show marked improvement for me also.

thanks! I had actually tried this before, but I also just got a pushed CS6 update today, could be mutually related.

Regarding unresponsiveness on switch, a lot of times that happens for me when I first open a file, it just shows transparency gamut until I try and "wake up" photoshop by toggling between another program and it a few times...that has always occured for me since early CS version however

Just showing transparency is usually caused by a bug in your video card driver. Updating the driver generally fixes it.

Allan has a great point that I consider a bit of a breakthrough (other than layer thumbnails) in making CS6 a little faster. I changed my cache levels to 2, re-started and did find it quite a bit faster. Not quite CS 4 or 5 fast, but closer and more useable with large, multi-layered files.

Thanks Alex, but I can't take credit, it was that guy above who noted it. It just worked for me to some degree too.

I still have one or two specific files that I could video with my phone and upload to Youtube or something and post for Chris's review, he'll see what we mean in action. I don't beleive anyone has done that yet.

I think it will become abundantly more clear what we mean if he can see exactly what is happening

http://youtu.be/rZvkvESQCGY

That link is an example of the delays that I am still experiencing, even after changing the cache levels to 2 (vs 4) and turning off layer previews. Its a lot better for me in the above video with those two settings changed, but it could be better.

Alex, can you tell me if this is the same type of thing you are experiencing?

Definitely looks like the same issue. I have to say lowering the Cache levels to 2 has really helped. Before that, the opening of and moving of layers on larger, more layer-rich files was painfully slow. Like full minutes (2-3) to open and 10-15 seconds to move a layer group like 10 px.

OK, I need to get a copy of that file so we can try to reproduce that slowdown. That could be video driver related, or could be something internal to Photoshop. I won't know until I can reproduce it and profile it.

ccox [at] adobe /dot/ com (obfuscated to entertain the spam scrapers)

Turning off layer thumbnails should get you back to the CS5 performance or better.

I have tried this and it doesn't do much for me. Hiding the panels works much better on my machine. Can't wait for a fix for this issue.

If you turn off thumbnails, they take no time. So you're looking at some other performance problem that is helped by hiding panels. Are you using any Flash Panels (including MiniBridge)? Are you running a browser at the same time as Photoshop (and can you try exiting it to see if that helps)?

btw I just posted @ "http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh..." but wanted to chime in and reveal a great find, cs6 performance feels overall very sluggish, like it can't keep up to my panning and zoom workflow speed. I did some optimization adjustments but what really did it was as someone noted hide the (whole) interface and everything was just as always, smooth and fast, so for me the problem of CS6 has to be the GUI, it slows down everything, and my laptop is not a beast or anything but it should be no challenge with not heavy psd projects. Hope it helps Chris.

I can confirm on my machine that pressing Tab to hide all the panels is about the same as hiding the layers by selecting Channels. Thanks for the tip.

My CS6 install is standard....no Flash panels or Mini Bridge open.

At this time of testing I also rebooted the machine and had NO apps open except CS6.

Please Adobe...this isn't a machine issue....it's a CS6 issue. On the day of release I worked on my main document in CS5....no problems. I upgrade to CS6 and it has issues with moving layers. Same machine, same specs, same day.

Hiding the layers helps solve the problem.

Turning off the thumbnails isn't an option....I need them. Please Adobe stop saying this is a user machine issue and start realizing that this is a CS6 issue.

-Kevin

Pedro - try JUST turning off the layer thumbnails (and not hiding the UI). We need to know if you're seeing the known problem with the thumbnails or something else.

We know about the layer thumbnail slowdown, and recommend turning of layer thumbnails as a temporary workaround. Beyond that, we haven't reproduced any other slowdowns.

If you see a slowdown AFTER turning off the layer thumbnails, then we need to know why your machine experiences a problem that millions of other users don't see.

Chris,

I tried your suggestions again and can confirm the following:

1. Just turning off layer thumbnails does in fact work to speed up moving large groups of layers for me to a degree.

2. Hiding all panels by pressing tab does a better job of speeding up the same task (groups move a little better). Plus I use the thumbnails, and turning them on and off is a pain compared to hitting the tab key.

3. Hiding or closing just the layers panel works the same for me as number 2 above.

4. I don't have minibridge open or any other 'flash' panels as far as I know.

5. No browsers are running when I performed this test.

From what I can tell, this problem is within ps cs6 itself, perhaps directly linked to the layers panel or the overall GUI itself.

An update as to when we can expect a fix for this issue would be much appreciated.

Again, we know about the problem with the layer thumbnails. And it sounds like the problem you're seeing is just the layer thumbnails.

What this topic is about, and what we're still trying to get information on, is an overall slowdown OTHER than the layer thumbnails.

Well there is a performance difference for me between no layer thumbnails and no layer panel shown ( no panel shown is faster ). Also, any idea when we can expect a fix for this issue?

We're working on a fix for the layer thumbnail problem.

Hello Chris, not really, in my case hiding layer thumbnail (or hiding the layers panel for that matter) doesn't make much difference (if any...) What does it is hiding the whole UI, it's like another world. Maybe you could run some UI performance tests. I use a Core 2 Duo 2.53 and 9600M GT card with updated drivers, it's not that bad of a machine.

Me doing tests won't help - I'm not seeing any slowdowns at all.

But since you are, you can try hiding one panel at a time to narrow down which is causing the slowdown on your system, then let us know. After that, we might be able to guess about causes and further narrow down the differences on your system.

lol calm down Chris, I'm trying to help you. You don't need a slowdown to know that the current UI is much hungrier (or nitpicking if you prefer) than before.
Except for the bright UI I'm very happy with my CS3 (it's starting to feel like good old XP).
If I disable "Use Graphics Processor" panning goes smooth, but zoom in/out is still slow, until I hide the whole UI. And I'm using drivers 301.42 for the 9600M GT. As I see it is just a problem about Card, Drivers and CS6 UI, just that.

On my systems, I can't test to find the slowdown, because there is no slowdown -- which I already verified with a profiling tool before we shipped (but failed to test lots of layers, darnit), and reverified as soon as the UI became a suspect.

So, there is something about your system or prefs that makes the UI slower. Once you figure out which panel it is, we can work out more details, and hopefully help other people who see CS6 running slow.

Don't you guys have benchmarking tools? No need to spot slowdowns
Anyway, to sum it up.

"Graphics Processor" checkbox ON
-panning is sluggish in whatever combination of panel visibility (even just menu bar), smooth on all UI hidden.
-Zoom gets better as less panels are visible, but not good enough until all UI is off.

"Graphics Processor" checkbox OFF
-Panning is smooth and responsive, with all UI off it even gets subtly better (not very noticeable)
-Zoom is slow, if I turn off layer thumbnail preview, gets slightly better, if I switch to channel tab gets considerably better (no yet good though), from that point on hiding panels gets better at a point where having only the menu bar feels acceptable.

Yes, I have plenty of benchmarking tools - but they only work if the slowdown exists on the machine I'm profiling. And this slowdown does not exist on any of our machines.

It's like you're asking me to count the fish in my swimming pool that has no fish. But in your lake, there are fish.

Anyway, what you're describing there is a slowdown due to your video card or drivers. The more UI you turn off, the less UI gets drawn and the less time your system spends waiting for the video card.

OK, you said you're using:
Core 2 Duo 2.53 and NVidia 9600M GT
drivers 301.42 for the 9600M GT

But you didn't tell us which OS version you were using.

We need to reproduce the setup and see if the drivers or card really are too slow in general, or if there might be some other factor involved.

Maybe I didn't explain well, something can run as fluent at 80% load as it does on 10%, but no need to say the first one is suboptimal. It becomes easier to reach 100% and show slowdowns for a broader number of hardware. Only an example. And yes I know that the opposite is also possible, sluggish at either 80% or 10%, but then we would have been talking about incompatibilities and not simply power as I do.

I use XP SP3. So this is not going to help much because there doesn't exist any official driver for this card beyond version 266. It's just marketing politics that 9600GT is supported but the Mobile version "isn't", upon a guide I just reenabled support editing some flags. I don't know you can try with v.266, or the desktop card, or mobile with vista or seven, or simply another individual setup with similar issues. I'm not urged in my personal case.

Again - you're seeing it take longer to redraw than CS5 did. I'm not seeing that, at all. I do not see a slowdown on any of my systems - thus I cannot diagnose a slowdown using my systems. 80% versus 10% doesn't matter -- on my systems CS6 takes the same amount of time and CPU usage as CS5 did.

If you're using XP, then the GPU settings can't be enabled in Photoshop CS6 - they are always disabled on XP (because we know the drivers don't work correctly, and the OS has bugs that will never be fixed).

Ah ok, so that's the reason I had to input the AllowOldGPU in the registry in order to make it work. Could you give me some insight on what things you detected that don't work on the driver (last version I suppose) and XP? I like tuning my OS and am interested.

We found lots of things, and disabled all GPU usage for XP.
And you used a "use at your own risk" registry entry that was intended for GPU vendors, not end users.
Get Win7, you'll be a whole lot happier.

Thanks for the suggestion but I have my own opinion on post XP windowses. I guess you can't tell or indicate about those XP flaws?
Still slowdowns on CPU mode stand true as I mentioned above. That's something to look at, but don't tell to me, I think I made the definitive decision to stay on CS3.

I am trying to help you. But you seem to assume that everyone sees the same problem you do, and they don't. And you seem to assume that I can solve whatever problem you are seeing without ever seeing it myself.

We know about the layer thumbnail slowdown - so first, you need to eliminate that as a possible cause by disabling layer thumbnails. AFTER that, then see if a slowdown remains, and if so, you need to help figure out why your system is seeing a slowdown that other people don't. What is different about your configuration, your usage, your other apps, your utilities, your preferences, etc.
We can't solve this for you because we're not seeing it.

We can't acknowledge something that we've never seen ourselves. We still don't know whether this is a Photoshop problem, and external problem, or what might be going on.

You are going to have to do some troubleshooting to help narrow down the problem on your system.

Where did anyone assume that everyone has the same problem? Of course we all want a fix but I don't think I somehow have right to one - it's up to you how you assign your development time, we can vote with our wallets if that doesn't suit us.

I have tried everything that's been suggested with no improvement - the fact that this is cross platform issue (OS X & Windows) suggests that it's a fundamental issue with Photoshop on certain PS file (large dimensions, lots of layers, lots of layer effects) - do you have a set of example PSDs that you run your performance tests on?

You assume that other people are seeing a slowdown -- and the vast majority of users are seeing no slowdown. Yes, different people probably are seeing different slowdowns (thumbnails, video drivers, antivirus, etc.).

And we are trying to track down whatever might be causing slowdowns for those people, but we need to be able to reproduce the problem in order to figure out the cause.

The thumbnail problem is cross platform. The rest so far seems to be more platform or system specific -- but people are confusing multiple issues with some global issue that has no evidence behind it.

No, we run our tests with lots of different documents, plus runtime generated documents (for when we need thousands of layers, etc.).

The only fundamental issue seen so far is the layer thumbnail slowdown - which is why we keep asking people to turn off layer thumbnails then test again.

Again: you have an issue, but other people do not see the same issue. So we're trying to work with you to figure out what is different about your system, preferences, or usage to show a slowdown that other people are not seeing.

Again, as you can read here and in other topics - we know about the layer thumbnail slowdown. For a temporary workaround, turn off the layer thumbnails. We're working on a fix.

Beyond that, we have not seen any slowdowns that weren't explained by third party software (plugins, anti-virus, drivers, etc.).

If you have a slowdown after turning off layer thumbnails, then we need more information to reproduce the problem.

I did write turning off layers, not turning off the layer thumbs. I will check whether turning off the thumb does the trick and get back.

We cannot fix what we've never seen. It sounds like you have something else going on, and we don't know what yet.

First, we need to rule out third party plugins, then external applications and utilities. Try disabling any third party plugins you have installed, and make sure you didn't copy any plugins from a previous version of Photoshop, or use the "additional plugins folder" preference to point to a previous version.

The graphics artifacts could mean that the problem is related to the GPU in some way, and the lag sounds like event handling or redraw slowdowns.

Also, check your activity monitor and see what other processes are running and taking a lot of CPU time (you may need to set it to show "all processes").

I don't have any plugins installed, it is a clean install. Removed all old preferences before installing. I don't think it has anything to do with external apps, if it does, than it sucks. I just have regular apps installed most Mac users do. Before CS6 everything worked fine.

I also had the feeling it has something to do with the GFX card, but I don't think that is the only problem. Perhaps the build got a lot more heavy due to all the things added and now you need a faster computer in order to run it.
If it helps it is a ATI Radeon HD 5750. I have the latest Mac OS update installed.

Things like collapsing/opening folders in the layers palette with a lot of layers is also very sluggish. Opening PSD's is also a lot slower in CS6 compared to CS5.

Could a lot of vector shapes be causing the slowdown? I'm a UI designer and I use a lot of vector shapes (some with effects). About 100 to 200 of them in 1 PSD. Do you guys do testing on things like website or UI designs (with a lot of vector shapes) or do you only test it on photography?
In CS5 I already had problems with folders with a lot of vectors shapes + effects on it. Nudging or moving the folder would cause lag, but I could live with that, but not saying it is nice.

I'm going to test it on a newer Mac I have.
p.s. I don't think a late 2010 iMac is that old.

This is my system info in PS CS6.

Adobe Photoshop Version: 13.0 (13.0 20120315.r.428 2012/03/15:21:00:00) x64
Operating System: Mac OS 10.7.4
System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:30, Stepping:5 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2
Physical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 2800 MHz
Built-in memory: 8192 MB
Free memory: 3727 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 7599 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 70 %
Image tile size: 128K
Image cache levels: 2
OpenGL Drawing: Enabled.
OpenGL Drawing Mode: Advanced
OpenGL Allow Normal Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Advanced Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Old GPUs: Not Detected.
OpenGL Version: 2.1 ATI-7.18.18
OpenCL Version:
Video Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Video Card Renderer: ATI Radeon HD 5750 OpenGL Engine
Display: 1
Main Display
Display Depth:= 32
Display Bounds:= top: 0, left: 0, bottom: 1440, right: 2560
Video Renderer ID: 16915202
Video Card Memory: 1260 MB
Video Rect Texture Size: 16384
Serial number: 90970309744087140038
Application folder: Macintosh HD:Applications:Adobe Photoshop CS6:
Photoshop scratch has async I/O enabled
Scratch volume(s):
Macintosh HD, 930.7G, 461.6G free
Required Plug-ins folder: Macintosh HD:Applications:Adobe Photoshop CS6:Adobe Photoshop CS6.app:Contents:Required:
Primary Plug-ins folder: Macintosh HD:Applications:Adobe Photoshop CS6:Plug-ins:
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Optional and third party plug-ins: NONE

Plug-ins that failed to load: NONE
Flash:
Mini Bridge
GuideGuide
Kuler
Installed TWAIN devices: NONE

I saw I had a plugin installed (GuideGuide). I removed it.

I did some more testing with PS CS6 and today it is a lot better, usable but the UX is quite 'not nice' due to the decreased performance (if you are like me and you create UI designs for a living). Same 1200x1600 file with a lot of vector shapes, text and folders. Panning, zooming with OpenGL a lot faster. Moving individual elements was fast, as expected. But moving a group of objects. For example a typical website header (folder) with logo (smart object), 5 buttons (folders with vector shapes and type). Many of these layers had styles applied to it (gradient, stroke, outer glow). I suspect PS has trouble calculating all the styles.

p.s. Regarding performance I'm not talking about the time it needs to calculate a complex gaussian blur, but more like operating the UI. Opening, closing folders. Moving/nudging folders with a lot of layers (this has always been a slight problem, even with older versions).

Moving a group sounds like the known layer thumbnail problem. Can you confirm that you have layer thumbnails turned off?

I'm going to try it again with layer thumbnails turned off! Thanks!

@Chris Cox: Yes, I can confirm. Turning off layer thumbnails solves the problem!! From 1 fps so to speak on complex folders to 20 fps. Wow, I'm very happy, thanks!!

The hand tool is just dependent on the video card redrawing part of the screen - so that's a good test.

What GPU?
What machine model?
Does the behavior change if you disable the GPU in preferences?

Hmm, what else might affect that....
Does changing the tile size in preferences change the behavior?

Machine: Macbook Air, Intel 1.8 core i7, 4 gb RAM mac osx 10.7.4. Video card (as listed in PS prefs) Intel HD graphics 3000 OpenGL Engine.

When I disable the GPU in prefs, the pan becomes smoother (but ever so slightly less responsive. By this, I mean that there is a slight delay between dragging with the hand tool and movement. The movement itself is smooth.).

Cache tile size changes don't seem to have any effect.

I have also tried closing all other programs but nothing external seems to be affecting this problem.

Can we assume from this that there is some issue between my Macbook Air's GPU and this problem I am seeing?

Yeah, sounds like the HD3000 may be a bit underpowered to run smoothly.

Hm, to me that sounds like a massive cop out; It pans smoothly on PS cs5.

We'll have to do some more testing, but it really does sound like the HD3000 just isn't up to the task (partly because CS6 uses the GPU for more than CS5 did).

Well, the thumbnails changed in CS6 (known problem), but the effects didn't.

Vector shapes got more options, but should be the same speed or faster than they were before if you use the same old options. If you add a vector stroke, then it will be slower because it now has more work to do (equivalent to another vector layer).

Please read the previous posts. If you are seeing a slowdown with moving layers - turn off layer thumbnails. Then we'll need more information and you to do some testing to figure out why your system is running slow.

I agree!

Agree

In heated support situations, canned responses tend to make things worse.
(I've seen that go down too many times)

Trying to help the customer understand the situation, and that we're trying to help (even if we can't solve problems instantly), usually helps if they're willing to listen.