# Help! Brush lag in Photoshop



## EN1GMAT1C (Jul 26, 2015)

First, I'm not sure if I'm posting in the right forum, if not then please excuse me and just casually move this to its' rightful place ^^;

Ok, I really need a bit of help please, I've been having problems trying to draw inside of Photoshop with my tablet. When I draw, the brush lags a few seconds behind the cursor pretty bad and I can barely work. I wish to be able to draw and have the brush react in real time with the cursor. I'm only experiencing brush lagging in Photoshop, all brush functions and pressure sensitivity are working fine. I've searched and found it is quite a problem, but I only found the solution to other/older tablet models and program versions and not what I have.

Just throwing out my specs just in case:

-Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit
ATI Radeon 3000 Graphics
AMD Phenom II X2 555 Processor
8 GBs RAM
-Wacom Cintiq 13HD, Driver version: 6.3.13w3 (recently updated)
-Adobe Photoshop CS6

Thanks in advance! c:


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## Byron (Jul 26, 2015)

Open the task manager and see what else is running. You may have a bunch of other processes going that are stretching your processor too thin.


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## Hyzoran (Jul 26, 2015)

If you are working with large brush and/or image sizes, Photoshop may have insufficient hardware resources to act at real-time speeds. Manipulating thousands of pixels a second is a seriously demanding task. Double-check to make sure hardware acceleration is enabled (CS6: Edit > Preferences > Performance > Use Graphics Processor). Other than that, your options are limited if you wish to improve performance, other than lowering brush sizes and working on a smaller scale the only alternative is to upgrade your hardware. In that regard, your processor is not particularly slow in terms of photoshop's requirements, however with my much faster 2.4ghz current-gen i7 I still cannot get perfect performance when working with brushsizes higher than 200, I usually paint on an image scale of atleast 2160p and downscale the final result to the desired resolution.

Edit: I also forgot to mention, that there may be other software that offer different performance results. For example, Krita might yield better performance results with similar brush sizes, though I have noticed that Krita doesn't handle large image sizes as well as Photoshop. So there is some research to be done there.


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## PlusThirtyOne (Jul 27, 2015)

What canvas and brush sizes are you using? Sounds like you're trying to paint with too big a brush on a freakishly high resolution. Try disable tilt sensitivity in your pen options if you're not actively using it  and increase the "flow" of your brush in Photoshop. Those extra calculations take  extra time to process at higher resolutions and it's possible your rig  just can't handle that much that fast. Depending on the version you have of Photoshop, you might have it's companion program called 'image Ready'. Try painting in that and see if you get the same results. 'image Ready' uses vector data instead of calculated rasters. Also try drawing in a different program like Sai or a low resolution, just to see if you have the same problem.
(There's nothing more aggravating than asking a specific question about a specific program just to be told you're "using the wrong program"...?)


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## EN1GMAT1C (Jul 27, 2015)

Ok, so I have done what was being suggested. I opened Task Manager  looked in Processes and tried ending the process of programs running in  the background, it didn't help.

I did what Hyzoran suggested and tried "use Graphics Processor", turns out it was already check marked anyway. I might as well have to update my hardware anyway, my pc is over 4 years old XP



PlusThirtyOne said:


> What canvas and brush sizes are you using? Sounds like you're trying to paint with too big a brush on a freakishly high resolution...



Sounds like you are assuming I use big brushes and high resolution, maybe because you read Hyzoran's answer(?). I don't work on big brushes, I use around 9px size for sketching (I kind of draw small XD) and sometimes use around 30px for coloring, i usually select areas and bucket tool color them. Lately I've been using canvas sizes around 2000 x 2000 at 200 in resolution. But even when I tried doodling in 800 x 800 at 72dpi, it gives me the same lag. I can't disable tilt sensitivity, I just leave it set as Normal. My brush flow is always at 100%, I work very flatly (i don't even use 'brush flow' actually..). Since I'm in college and they require me to use Adobe programs, I'm pretty much forced to use Photoshop, can't really be moving around from program to program. And in contrary to the positive opinion of almost every single artist out there, I hate Paint Tool SAI. Bad experience. Never again.

SAI and I are not friends. Worst program I ever tried. It's dumb. T_T Yea, you heard me, guys. gets brick'd by the whole community

Anyway, the only thing that helped a bit is to reinstall the updated drivers for my cintiq tablet. It only helped a little, but it still lags a bit behind just not as bad as before. Still, all the help and suggestions were appreciated, thank you everyone! I'm still open to trying anything else!


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## Hyzoran (Jul 27, 2015)

Hm, does this still happen when you use a mouse or other input device instead? I wonder if it has to do with the tablet you are using, and not an actual performance problem. Another thing I would try is to monitor Photoshop's CPU usage in task manager and see how much photoshop is utilizing during use (during actual brushwork, not sitting idle).


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## PlusThirtyOne (Jul 27, 2015)

EN1GMAT1C said:


> Sounds like you are assuming I use big brushes and high resolution, maybe because you read Hyzoran's answer(?)



Nope. Hadn't even read it. i have that problem when i use large brushes on large canvases. it's actually a common problem, people drawing on too large a canvas with bigger brushes. The bigger the canvas, the bigger the brush, more pixels, more calculations, etc. The other issue people have is pen tilt and pressure sensitivity. Apologies for skimming your OP though, i completely brushed over the "only experiencing brush lagging in Photoshop" part. THAT, i did not read. My bad.


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## EN1GMAT1C (Jul 28, 2015)

Hyzoran said:


> Hm, does this still happen when you use a mouse or other input device instead?



Ya  know what, yes. It has the same lag when using the mouse too. And  inside of task manager, it raised the CPU usage around 20% and spikes up  and down.



PlusThirtyOne said:


> Apologies for skimming your OP though..


That's  ok, it's just a small mistake. I'll keep in mind about what you said  with the bigger canvas and brush size problems tho, thanks!


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## Hyzoran (Jul 28, 2015)

Only 20%?? I am not sure if Photoshop is multi-threaded or not (I would assume it is, being a well-funded popular professional tool), however it should be utilizing at least 80% on it's own if it is being limited by performance.

I am not sure if there is a mobile equivalent of the RHD 3000 you have... so I ask this, is your device by any chance a laptop? If so make sure High Performance power-plan is enabled in Windows power options. If this is not enabled, windows will not utilize the full capabilities of your hardware.. and for some reason power-plans take effect even if you are connected to the charger.

If this is not the case, however, then I am truly stumped on the matter, as your hardware should be able to handle the demand you are throwing at it. I'd suggest 'stupid' solutions such as resetting Photoshop settings/reinstall Photoshop/etc. because in that case, the issue must be Photoshop by some quirk.


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## EN1GMAT1C (Jul 30, 2015)

I rechecked again with the CPU usage a few more times and now I'm getting up to 50% and it changes when I restart. It goes from 50s to 70s to 80s and back to 50%. I am using a desktop. 

It's alright if you couldn't help, just wanted to be able to sketch inside photoshop. Any other program works fine, so I guess I'll just use something else for sketching.


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## Centradragon (Aug 1, 2015)

After checking the specs for your computer (and someone could correct me on this, I'm kind of a dumb), it seems they're really low for Photoshop. I have a 6-year-old laptop with a worse processor and the same amount of RAM, but it has 512gb of dedicated video memory which is a godsend. I only have issues with extremely large canvas sizes (3 feet wide) or a hella lot of layers.

Might just be time to upgrade? I think a dual-core CPU is great, but it's probably being overtaxed because Photoshop is a huge resource hog. The problem is, laptops are usually 4-year machines unless you spend a dumb amount of money on them. Look for a gaming one (or a Mac/Lenovo if you're willing to spend $2500+; IPS screens are amazing.)

Luckily windows has a lot of affordable options for laptops that are extremely powerful for the price you pay. I always go Mac, but it's a personal preference -- you get more bang for your buck with windows, and if you already use it, you probably wouldn't dislike it as much as  I do.


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