You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Why is Photoshop still so slow??

I just bought a Mac Studio M2 Max with 96GB of RAM for the express reason that Photoshop was very slow on my iMac when working with large (2G+) files. I set the machine up and have been working on it for a week or two now, and finally had a large file to work on. It's 2.7G and 12 layers, so not huge or anything. Photoshop is just as slow on this machine as it was on my Intel iMac. Can anyone help with any configurations that could make a difference? This machine is supposed to be super powerful and cost a fair bit of money, and I really don't want to be disappointed with it.

Mac Studio, macOS 14.6

Posted on Sep 18, 2024 9:00 AM

Top-ranking reply

mp2u

Level 1

19 points

Posted on Oct 15, 2024 3:42 AM

I have bought also a new Mac Studio Max with 64GB and 1TB internal SSD for the same reason.

I used to have a Mac Pro (late 2013 - the “trash can model”) running El Capitan with Photoshop CS6.

A few issues as well :

the Mac Studio is barely faster than my old Mac Pro
Sonoma is full of bugs, unstable and a real pain. Two of my problems are the connection with my Wacom Cintiq Pro is not stable and going to sleep mode is a huge issue. But other problems along…
Photoshop 2024 is slow, unstable, with lots of poor thought changes compared to my old trusted CS6. Just trying to quit (unless I force quit) Photoshop take a god 5 minutes… Once restarted, it works fine for a while until it slows down again to being very very sluggish to a point it’s impossible to work.

As a pro painter (+30 years experience incl. almost 20 years on computer), I would NOT recommend this latest Mac (machine and OS) and the latest Photoshop. They are a complete waste of money IMO and experience.

View in context

Similar questions

26 replies

Oct 15, 2024 8:28 AM in response to Servant of Cats

No, the working layered files are up in the gigabyte range, but the final flattened files are usually only a few hundred megs.

I posted a screen cap of my Activity Monitor memory pressure graphs earlier in this post. Yes, the graphs go into the reds across all 12 cores.

Oct 15, 2024 8:55 AM in response to mp2u

It blows my mind that these are supposed to be the best personal computers out there. They are industry standard in creative fields, as is Photoshop. All they seem do it bloat the software and hardware with unnecessary features while ignoring basic power and performance. I did my due diligence when I bought this computer; I went to a Mac store and talked to a sales person, telling him exactly what kind of work I do and the size of files I work with, how disappointed I was with the iMac, and I was assured beyond any doubt that this machine would be more than powerful enough. I feel duped.