- Photoshop User Guide
- Introduction to Photoshop
- Photoshop and other Adobe products and services
- Photoshop on the iPad (not available in mainland China)
- Photoshop on the iPad | Common questions
- Get to know the workspace
- System requirements | Photoshop on the iPad
- Create, open, and export documents
- Add photos
- Work with layers
- Draw and paint with brushes
- Make selections and add masks
- Retouch your composites
- Work with adjustment layers
- Adjust the tonality of your composite with Curves
- Apply transform operations
- Crop and rotate your composites
- Rotate, pan, zoom, and reset the canvas
- Work with Type layers
- Work with Photoshop and Lightroom
- Get missing fonts in Photoshop on the iPad
- Japanese Text in Photoshop on the iPad
- Manage app settings
- Touch shortcuts and gestures
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Edit your image size
- Livestream as you create in Photoshop on the iPad
- Correct imperfections with the Healing Brush
- Create brushes in Capture and use them in Photoshop on the iPad
- Work with Camera Raw files
- Create and work with Smart Objects
- Adjust exposure in your images with Dodge and Burn
- Auto adjustment commands in Photoshop on the iPad
- Smudge areas in your images with Photoshop on the iPad
- Saturate or desaturate your images using Sponge tool
- Content aware fill for iPad
- Photoshop on the web (not available in mainland China)
- Common questions
- System requirements
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Supported file types
- Introduction to the workspace
- Open and work with cloud documents
- Generative AI features
- Basic concepts of editing
- Quick Actions
- Work with layers
- Retouch images and remove imperfections
- Make quick selections
- Image improvements with Adjustment Layers
- Move, transform, and crop images
- Draw and paint
- Work with Type layers
- Work with anyone on the web
- Manage app settings
- Generate Image
- Generate Background
- Reference Image
- Photoshop (beta) (not available in mainland China)
- Generative AI (not available in mainland China)
- Content authenticity (not available in mainland China)
- Cloud documents (not available in mainland China)
- Photoshop cloud documents | Common questions
- Photoshop cloud documents | Workflow questions
- Manage and work with cloud documents in Photoshop
- Upgrade cloud storage for Photoshop
- Unable to create or save a cloud document
- Solve Photoshop cloud document errors
- Collect cloud document sync logs
- Invite others to edit your cloud documents
- Share files and comment in-app
- Workspace
- Workspace basics
- Preferences
- Learn faster with the Photoshop Discover Panel
- Create documents
- Place files
- Default keyboard shortcuts
- Customize keyboard shortcuts
- Tool galleries
- Performance preferences
- Use tools
- Presets
- Grid and guides
- Touch gestures
- Use the Touch Bar with Photoshop
- Touch capabilities and customizable workspaces
- Technology previews
- Metadata and notes
- Touch capabilities and customizable workspaces
- Place Photoshop images in other applications
- Rulers
- Show or hide non-printing Extras
- Specify columns for an image
- Undo and history
- Panels and menus
- Position elements with snapping
- Position with the Ruler tool
- Web, screen, and app design
- Image and color basics
- How to resize images
- Work with raster and vector images
- Image size and resolution
- Acquire images from cameras and scanners
- Create, open, and import images
- View images
- Invalid JPEG Marker error | Opening images
- Viewing multiple images
- Customize color pickers and swatches
- High dynamic range images
- Match colors in your image
- Convert between color modes
- Color modes
- Erase parts of an image
- Blending modes
- Choose colors
- Customize indexed color tables
- Image information
- Distort filters are unavailable
- About color
- Color and monochrome adjustments using channels
- Choose colors in the Color and Swatches panels
- Sample
- Color mode or Image mode
- Color cast
- Add a conditional mode change to an action
- Add swatches from HTML CSS and SVG
- Bit depth and preferences
- Layers
- Layer basics
- Nondestructive editing
- Create and manage layers and groups
- Select, group, and link layers
- Place images into frames
- Layer opacity and blending
- Mask layers
- Apply Smart Filters
- Layer comps
- Move, stack, and lock layers
- Mask layers with vector masks
- Manage layers and groups
- Layer effects and styles
- Edit layer masks
- Extract assets
- Reveal layers with clipping masks
- Generate image assets from layers
- Work with Smart Objects
- Blending modes
- Combine multiple images into a group portrait
- Combine images with Auto-Blend Layers
- Align and distribute layers
- Copy CSS from layers
- Load selections from a layer or layer mask's boundaries
- Knockout to reveal content from other layers
- Selections
- Get started with selections
- Make selections in your composite
- Select and Mask workspace
- Select with the marquee tools
- Select with the lasso tools
- Adjust pixel selections
- Move, copy, and delete selected pixels
- Create a temporary quick mask
- Select a color range in an image
- Convert between paths and selection borders
- Channel basics
- Save selections and alpha channel masks
- Select the image areas in focus
- Duplicate, split, and merge channels
- Channel calculations
- Get started with selections
- Image adjustments
- Replace object colors
- Perspective warp
- Reduce camera shake blurring
- Healing brush examples
- Export color lookup tables
- Adjust image sharpness and blur
- Understand color adjustments
- Apply a Brightness/Contrast adjustment
- Adjust shadow and highlight detail
- Levels adjustment
- Adjust hue and saturation
- Adjust vibrance
- Adjust color saturation in image areas
- Make quick tonal adjustments
- Apply special color effects to images
- Enhance your image with color balance adjustments
- High dynamic range images
- View histograms and pixel values
- Match colors in your image
- Crop and straighten photos
- Convert a color image to black and white
- Adjustment and fill layers
- Curves adjustment
- Blending modes
- Target images for press
- Adjust color and tone with Levels and Curves eyedroppers
- Adjust HDR exposure and toning
- Dodge or burn image areas
- Make selective color adjustments
- Adobe Camera Raw
- Camera Raw system requirements
- What's new in Camera Raw
- Introduction to Camera Raw
- Create panoramas
- Supported lenses
- Vignette, grain, and dehaze effects in Camera Raw
- Default keyboard shortcuts
- Automatic perspective correction in Camera Raw
- Radial Filter in Camera Raw
- Manage Camera Raw settings
- Open, process, and save images in Camera Raw
- Repair images with the Enhanced Spot Removal tool in Camera Raw
- Rotate, crop, and adjust images
- Adjust color rendering in Camera Raw
- Process versions in Camera Raw
- Make local adjustments in Camera Raw
- Image repair and restoration
- Image enhancement and transformation
- Drawing and painting
- Paint symmetrical patterns
- Draw rectangles and modify stroke options
- About drawing
- Draw and edit shapes
- Painting tools
- Create and modify brushes
- Blending modes
- Add color to paths
- Edit paths
- Paint with the Mixer Brush
- Brush presets
- Gradients
- Gradient interpolation
- Fill and stroke selections, layers, and paths
- Draw with the Pen tools
- Create patterns
- Generate a pattern using the Pattern Maker
- Manage paths
- Manage pattern libraries and presets
- Draw or paint with a graphics tablet
- Create textured brushes
- Add dynamic elements to brushes
- Gradient
- Paint stylized strokes with the Art History Brush
- Paint with a pattern
- Sync presets on multiple devices
- Migrate presets, actions, and settings
- Text
- Filters and effects
- Saving and exporting
- Color Management
- Web, screen, and app design
- Video and animation
- Printing
- Automation
- Troubleshooting
Setting the right performance preferences in Photoshop helps your computer run stably at the optimum speed without freezes, lags, or delays. Based on the resources available on your system, tweak these preferences to get the most out of your Photoshop experience.
Photoshop provides a set of preferences (Preferences > Performance) to help you make optimum use of your computer's resources, such as memory, cache, graphics processor, displays, etc. Depending on your primary use case for using Photoshop and the types of documents you generally work with, different combinations of these settings may suit you.
Additional settings such as Scratch Disks, available on other tabs of the Preferences dialog, may also directly impact your computer's running speed and stability.
Adjust the memory allocated to Photoshop
You can improve performance by increasing the amount of memory/RAM allocated to Photoshop. The Memory Usage area of the Performance preferences dialog (Preferences > Performance) tells you how much RAM is available to Photoshop. It also shows the ideal Photoshop memory allocation range for your system.
By default, Photoshop uses 70% of available RAM.
- Increase the RAM allocated to Photoshop by changing the value in the Let Photoshop Use box. Alternatively, adjust the Memory Usage slider.
- Restart Photoshop to enable your changes.
To find the ideal RAM allocation for your system, change it in 5% increments and monitor performance in the Efficiency indicator.
We don't recommend allocating more than 85% of your computer's memory to Photoshop. Doing so may affect performance by leaving no memory for other essential system applications.
If you experience out-of-RAM or out-of-memory errors in Photoshop, try increasing the amount of RAM allocated to Photoshop. However, setting the RAM allocation for Photoshop too high (>85%) could affect the performance of other running applications, making your system unstable.
The best solution to this issue is to increase the amount of RAM to your computer. Check with your computer manufacturer for RAM specifications and compatibility.
Adjust cache levels
Cache basics
Photoshop uses image caching to speed up the redrawing of high-resolution documents while you're working on them. You can specify up to eight levels of cached image data and choose one of the four available cache tile sizes.
Increasing cache levels improves Photoshop’s responsiveness while you work, although images may take longer to load. The cache tile size determines the amount of data on which Photoshop operates at a time. Bigger tile sizes speed up complex operations, such as sharpening filters. Smaller changes, such as brush strokes, are more responsive with smaller tile sizes.
Cache presets
Three cache presets are available in the Performance preferences. Choose the one that matches your primary use case/purpose of using Photoshop:
- Web/UI Design: Choose this option if you use Photoshop primarily for web, app, or screen design. This option is appropriate for documents having numerous layers of low-to-medium pixel dimension assets.
- Default/Photos: Choose this option if you use Photoshop primarily to retouch or edit moderate-sized images. For example, use this option if you normally edit photos originating from your mobile or digital camera in Photoshop.
- Huge Pixel Dimensions: Choose this option if you work extensively with heavy documents in Photoshop; for example, panoramas, matte paintings, etc.
Cache levels
For finer control, specify cache levels manually; the default value is 4.
- If you use relatively small files—roughly 1 megapixel or 1280 by 1024 pixels—and many layers (50 or more), set Cache Levels to 1 or 2. Setting Cache Levels to 1 disables image caching; only the current screen image is cached.
- If you use files with larger pixel dimensions—say, 50 megapixels or larger—set Cache Levels higher than 4. Higher cache levels speed up redrawing.
You may not get high-quality results with some Photoshop features if you set Cache Levels to 1.
Limit history states
You can save scratch disk space and improve performance by limiting or reducing the number of history states Photoshop saves in the History panel. The amount of space you save varies depending on how many pixels an operation changes. For example, a history state based on a small paint stroke or a non-destructive operation, such as creating or modifying an adjustment layer, consumes little space. Applying a filter to an entire image, on the other hand, consumes much more space.
Photoshop can save up to 1,000 history states; the default number is 50.
To reduce that number, go to the Performance preference dialog. In the History & Cache
section, set the the number of History States to a lower value.
Set graphics processor (GPU) settings
How does Photoshop leverage the graphics processor?
If you encounter any issues working with the above features, see Graphics processor (GPU) troubleshooting.
GPU preferences
Photoshop provides you with dedicated GPU settings in both the Performance and 3D sections in the Preferences dialog.
Settings in the Preferences > Performance section
If a graphics card is detected on your system, its name and model will appear under Detectected Graphics Processor in the Graphics Processor Settings area of the Performance section.
- If your graphics card is supported, the "Use Graphics Processor" checkbox is enabled and checked by default.
- If your graphics card isn't supported, the checkbox will be grayed out and not checked by default.
- If your graphics card is supported, and the "Use Graphics Processor" checkbox becomes unchecked, this is likely because Photoshop has detected a crash caused by a defective graphics driver or configuration. See Troubleshoot Photoshop graphics processor (GPU) and graphics driver issues.
Manage scratch disks
To learn more about managing scratch disk preferences, recommended settings, and troubleshooting, see Set up scratch disks.