10.7.4 huge photoshop performance issues

Question

Level 1

4 points

10.7.4 huge photoshop performance issues

I've had variants of three different versions of Photoshop installed - CS4, 5 and now 6. I'm not 100% sure when the issue
started occurring, but I've done a lot of experimentation to analyze it.

The components involved are

1.Photoshop

2.Wacom Intuos 3

3.Lion 10.7.4

Whenever I'm digital painting, which I'm doing professionally, all the time, the colour picking mechanism is not only slow, but doesn't work about 2/3 of the
time. The next stroke made *after* the colour picking never works either. I do this about ONCE EVERY TWO SECONDS. So it's like being punched
in the face all day long while you're trying to get some work done.

Most likely, support staff will attempt to get rid of me saying 'ask wacom' or 'ask adobe.' BUT, here's the process I've gone through.

1.Tried all three variants of photoshop. They all have issues.

2.Switched to a different Wacom tablet (identical model), switched three different wacom pens, all identical models. Note that I also
tested all of these on a Windows machine with the same Photoshop issue, and they all work. And I also tested them all, and photoshop,
on my old intel powerbook running the same version of Photoshop, and it's fine. That Mac is running Leopard.

3.I erased my HD, reinstalled Lion (10.7.4 obviously) and installed Photoshop and the Wacom drivers on top of it again. Just one version,
nothing else to mess with it. Aaaaand, exactly the same issue.

This has made my Mac unusable and frankly, is having a massive financial impact on me 😟. If anyone can think of anything I've left out, please
give it a shot. My instinct is that this has narrowed it down to the operating system, and that it's most likely something to do with the GPU. Or the USB bus. Or the application support libraries - but specific to this hardware as, like i say, I've tried another mac with leopard and all is fine.

HEEEEELP!

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jun 3, 2012 3:20 PM

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Answer 1

Shootist007

Level 6

16,703 points

Jun 3, 2012 3:45 PM in response to dirty_c

Well there is No support staff here. This is a User to User forum.

Maybe one of the other users can help. I can't as I only use PS CS5 on PC and I have no problems with it on my desktop.

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Answer 2

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Jun 3, 2012 4:00 PM in response to dirty_c

Have you tried doing the same tasks with a mouse instead of with the tablet? If it behaves the same way, try starting up with the shift key down to enter Safe Mode. Once started up, try the same thing again, with the mouse. If it works with a mouse all the time, or works with a mouse in Safe Mode, then the problem is likely to be with the Wacom drivers.

I don't use Photoshop, but I can tell you that the color picker works fine with a mouse in Photoshop Elements in Mac OS X 10.7.4.

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Answer 3

dirty_c Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 3, 2012 4:08 PM in response to thomas_r.

That's useful, I'll give that a shot. Right now I'm restoring the entire system to its prior glory via a painfully slow time machine over usb recovery. So that'll be about 6 hours 🙂

Having said that, if it doesn't establish that it's the wacom, has anyone had any experience with the 'one time issue' apple support? $50 seems ridiculously steep to deal with a bunch of (inevitably) junior support guys.

BTW, I have other friends having this same issue.

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Answer 4

dirty_c Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 3, 2012 11:03 PM in response to dirty_c

Oops I meant to attribute that to Thomas.

Well, I feel like a mug, but, SUPER happy to have sorted it. I'd upgraded the driver on my laptop as well, and not had an issue, so didn't think that'd be it. But, after doing the mouse test and not having a problem, I downgraded the Wacom driver, and bingo, it's good as gold.

In retrospect, it seems a bit obvious and I should have tried it before I trashed my machine haha - thank god for Time Machine, and it's been a few years since I've had to troubleshoot something like that, so hopefully I won't go to such extremes so quickly next time 😝

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Answer 5

Jun 7, 2012 12:21 AM in response to dirty_c

Hi dirty_c,

Am experiencing the same with both Photoshop & Painter when using the intuos 3 in 10.7.4.

Going to downgrade the wacom driver (like what you did) to see if it helps. Would you be able to share the details/version of the wacom driver which worked fine on your machine running 10.7.4? Thanks!

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Answer 6

Jun 7, 2012 4:41 PM in response to dirty_c

I am having serious Photoshop performance issues as well.

My Photoshop CS5 was running well until I upgraded to Mac OS 10.7.4. My observations are highly un-scientific, but I am noticing the worst performance in Photoshop when I have my Firefox browser open. It's like the 2 programs are fighting with each other. I am also noticing Flash crash reports on Firefox when Photoshop is open.

Even with Firefox closed, however, Photoshop CS5 is sluggish and slow with 10.7.4. Even the dreaded beachball coming back into my life.

I have even erased my hardrive and reinstalled the OS and that did not help.

Other programs are running fine. Even Firefox runs well when photoshop is not running.

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