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Photoshop CS6 / Mac OS Lion – Slow Performance

Sep 11, 2012 12:17 PM

Hi,

I've installed the latest CS6 update, but Photoshop is running really slow on quite a number of things. I'm happy with the overall performance: read/write, filters, selections, cropping, transform... they're all OK.

But whenever I go into the Curves dialogue, and want to add a point to the curve (or move an exisiting point), there's a 1-2 second "delay", so it's really hard to work fluently and without time-lag. Even if I have the "Preview" box unchecked in the Curves Dialogue.

I noticed the same is happening when I'm in the Gradients dialogue: Try and pick a color, in the color dialogue. 1-2 seconds later, the chosen colour finally gets selected.

The strange thing is: If I work with a Curve Adjustment Layer (instead of a "destructive" curve), Photoshop behaves nice & snappy...

Anyone got any ideas? Or the same problem?

Would an update to OS 10.8 make things better? (I'd prefer to stick with Lion for now though)

(System Info: 2.5 GHz i7 Quadcore Macbook pro, 16GB ram, OS 10.7.4)

2421 Views 4 Replies Latest reply: BH_Imaging, Sep 17, 2012 3:08 PM

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1. Curt Y,

Sep 11, 2012 3:13 PM in reply to BH_Imaging

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From all the posts of 10.8 I would pass on the upgrade for now.

Make sure you have latest update for your OS as GPU drivers are crucial in CS6.

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2. BH_Imaging,

Sep 12, 2012 4:05 AM in reply to Curt Y

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I do have the latest upgrade of OS 10.7
(late 2011 MacBook Pro – so OS 10.8 wasn't even out yet when the laptop was produced, hence I don't think 10.7 or 10.8 matters)

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3. station_two,

Sep 12, 2012 4:23 AM in reply to BH_Imaging

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BH_Imaging wrote:

…I don't think 10.7 or 10.8 matters)

Oh, it would matter (adversely) if you had 10.8.0. or 10.8.1, trust me. Mountain Lion, a.k.a. Mountain Poop, is hugely unreliable at this point.

Apple usually starts getting a new major release right by about the dot six (.6) update. That's why Lion, at 10.7.4, never could be called "great".

Make sure you have upgraded Photoshop CS6 to version 13.0.1.

(As an aside, it runs great under Snow Leopard 10.6.8.)

Try turning graphics processor acceleration / Open GL - CL OFF and re-launch Photoshop to see it that speeds up things a little. If it does, that would point to the graphics card as at least one of the causes of the slowdown.

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4. BH_Imaging,

Sep 17, 2012 3:08 PM in reply to station_two

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For the moment I'm glad I'm still on OSX 10.7 – latest update.
Same for Photoshop: Latest update on CS6.

I tried all things: Open GL on/off,... always with a restart of Photoshop before I tried fighting that lag in Photoshop. Problem remains: direct Curves are awfully slow, adjustment layer curves work fine.

To make things worse, I just noticed another problem: I was working with some 3d-renderings of still images, which had some dark/blurred reflections on a black background. Unless I zoom in to at least 50%, those blurred & dark reflections look INCREDIBLY bad. Nearly as if I was back on a VGA PC with only 32 colours to display.
(I know that Mac OS – as opposed to Windows – can create banding, as it doesn't communicate 12-bits to the Monitor LUT. But in the above 3d render example. I'm not talking of simple "banding"... it's more like BAAAAAAANDING).

If I had an older Laptop, I'd blame my system. But on a late-2011 MacBook Pro with 1GB of video ram this shouldn't happen. I'm feeling VERY let down by Photoshop CS6.

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