Photoshop CS2 performance

I've been running CS2 for a couple of weeks now, and either it's a

fluke with my installation, or CS2 seems *sloooooooooow* compared to

version 7.

 

I just timed how long it took PS7 to open up 20 random Jpegs at once

shot with my 10D, and it took half the time than CS2. Menu changes,

screen repaints....CS2 just seems sluggish compared to PS7. The

difference was a bit more obvious on my Athlon XP 2500 at home vs my

3ghz P4 at work, but it was still there. Any others notice the

disparity with CS2, or is it just a fluke with my installs?

It's more powerful, requires more resources, so yes, it is slower than slimmer, older versions. When I used PS 5.5 in 2000-2001 I was astounded how slow that one was in opening. Now PS CS2 is a breeze; you get used to it.

Yup, mine is slower as well. People say this is caused because it requires more power but I do not understand why it would require more power to do the same stuff in older versions? I do not understand.

analogy : a car with a trunk full and 4 persons - a car with little in the trunk and just the

driver.... which car go faster..?...the cycle of software that need better hardware and the

new hardware need newer software is a never ending story...

I find the same as you. I have noticed that it will at least use more RAM than CS or version 7 (3 gigs instead of two), but even with that advantage it does go slower. I am basing my experience on a 2.8htz PC with 2gigs of RAM and a MAC G% dually, with 4gigs of RAM. ??

You are on windows so I'm not sure how to tell you to configure RAM, but PsCS and PsCS2

run best with a preference of about 72% of available RAM on OS X.

As I research this further is seems CS2 has an issue with video cards with less than 128meg, but that would only affect sluggish redraws. Judging from what I'm reading in a lot of DP forums, PS7 just got very popular again.

 

Hopefully they'll fix it.

Even on video cards with 256 megs, CS2 is simply slower than previous versions. Even on my dual Opteron, it sometimes leaves me shaking my head. Not when I have an image loaded and working, but just in startup time and the time to open an image.

 

steve

Remember the versions of Excel that had the hidden Flight Simulator game where you manuvered your plane around the monuments that had the developers names on them? (google to find the secret sequence of key strokes to launch the game)Software bloat takes many forms.

 

Scott, I think this is just another example where the software funtionality has grown to fit the new hardware speed. You see where old software runs blazingly fast on new hardware. And the converse.

What amazes me is the performance of the Bridge. I can load a full-size RAW image in irfanview faster than a tiny thumbnail in the Bridge. And I can launch it into CS2 faster from irfanview than the Bridge. This is just bad design.

I have a Mac G5, 2x2ghz, 4gig RAM....and my photoshop CS2 AND Bridge are kicking a**! I

personaly i didnt find it slower then 7 or CS. I work on big file everyday, around 500meg for

billboard and poseter size picture (normally 100 meg in my day to day work) work in bridge

with thousand of file from Canon Mark2 ( 100 file per folder at the time, load, work, render,

process pretty fast) after every shooting. No i cant complain i am pretty happy with my beast.

sorry.

<I>Scott, I think this is just another example where the software funtionality has grown to fit the new hardware speed</i><P>CS2 takes 2-3x as long to load 20 or so of my 10D images than PS7. Bridge runs like PS5 on my Celeron 300.<P>This product has problems. Stop making excuses for Adobe please.

There have been reports that Adobe is looking into fixing the performance issues. It's not difficult to find all the issues, with both Windows and Mac platforms, virtually all the forums are filled with discussions, including Adobe's. Hopefully there will be a fix release later this year.

I made a test not long ago... Dual Processor - 5Gb Ram - CS1 (90% Ram assigned) versus

same machine with CS2 (90% Ram assigned)... hmmmmmm...... CS1 is faster....

One reason I've stayed with CS not CS2. Some believe the bridge is both the attraction and the performance problem. Yet others have had no performance problems on CS2 and in fact say that operations within CS2 have been much faster. Scott, Jeff, have you guys found that just doing stuff besides opening and closing is slower? Like actions etc.?

<I>Hopefully there will be a fix release later this year.</I><P>

 

Yes. And here's how it will be introduced:<P>

 

Take your images to the next level in digital image processing. Announcing Adobe Photoshop

CS3 - now incorporating MaxSpeed technology. Upgrades from CS2 are only $149.99.

Dial 1-800- 52Speed. Operators are standing by...<P>

 

So true on the Bridge - what a slug. We'll see what Apple's cooking up tomorrow.

And I thought CS1 was already dead slow compared to PS7. I try to stay in 7 as much as I can.

Saves ages on actions. CS only comes into play when I need its specific functionality. And I try

to stay away from CS2 until I have a computer that can chew it.

http://www.barefeats.com/cscs2.html

CS2 is abit of a slug with Bridge; compared to the browser on CS1 on many machines. Here I have tried CS2 on a Pentium; PPro; PII; PIII; and P4. Here the bog seems not be a video card issue; since I have seen it bog the same with intregrated; old 2meg cards; or a high end 256Meg card; on the same class of box. <BR><BR>To load old PS 3.0 takes less that a second on many of my Piii's; and something like 8 to 15 seconds with CS2. On older boxes I often use the radically quicker browse of PS 7 ; then going to CS2 if I need it. The bog seems like a cacheing issue. With an ancient Pentium; PPro Bridge usually barfs; it works on some Pii; and not others; and works on all Piii and P4.<BR><BR> The bog with Bridge is like it is opening each image to max size; and not like a "skim the book pages" like other browsers. Even with a 3.0Ghz P4; 2gigs of ram box with a 10000rpm HDA ; I am not not a fan of Bridge....It is like the old PII boxes at 333Mhz with PS7 are way quicker at browsing a directory. Here is where Bridge wont load on an ancient PPro board; with a 333Mhz PII CPU.<BR><BR><img src="http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y148/ektar/PNdesktop/bridgeErrorPProBox4withPIIoverdrive.gif"><BR><BR><img src="http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y148/ektar/PNdesktop/desktopcropcopy.gif">

Scott, thanks for the 'heads up on' this performance issue. I too use PS7 and use Nikon or Canon software for RAW - 16 bit TIFF conversion.

 

For a while now I have felt like the 'poor relation' to all my PN brethren who are using CS2 and have been steeling myself to stump up the cash for a full CS2 upgrade (and another 512 meg of RAM). As a result of this thread I am going to put any decision on hold for now until Adobe have addressed this problem.

 

I would suspend my upgrade even longer if anyone knew how I could download Adobe camera RAW seperately to use with PS7 rather than CS2.

Trevor, I imagine you don't have to do to much to the image after converted in PS7, but again

most of the tools are blanked out when in 16 bit mode in PS7. Have you looked at CS? Its

more like 7 in most functionality with browser, but it has much more available in 16 bit

mode.

well, i'm going to come to bridges rescue. it's getting a bum deal here i think. so, i love it. i'm not sure what people excepted from such an extensive program? it's huge compared to cs and 7. yep, it makes editing and corecting hundreds of images a breeze and most of the time you don't even need to open photoshop. if you're just using it as a window to explore your directories of images to open up the odd one here and there, then yes, it'll be slow for this and would be like driving your tractor trailer down to the cornerstore for a pint of milk. as far as adobe is concerned, there is nothing to fix. they're going to leave it up to you to upgrade your computers as the next version will be 64 bit architecture too. the max usable ram in 32 bit bridge/cs2 can is 1.7 gig and in 64 bit it's 2.7gig. this i don't care too much for and anxiously await the 64 bit version.

There have been web updates to "Bridge"; if you have an early CS2 variant; like I do. Each new version of PS requires more horsepower to be snappy. <br><br>Scott; is the CS2 bog you have with opening files in CS2; or using Bridge to preview your directory of them?

<I>We'll see what Apple's cooking up tomorrow.</I><P>

 

Yep, can't wait to play with it. <a href= "http://www.apple.com/aperture">Aperture.</a>

<i>"which car go faster?"</i><br><br>The BMW.