CS2 memory fills up after editing and closing a file

SS
Posted By
Samuli_Siirala
Oct 22, 2007
Views
445
Replies
10
Status
Closed
I have a problem with Photoshop CS2 – normally when I start the program it initially takes up about 63Mb of memory. After I’ve edited a photo (10Mpx files – about 200Mb with layers) I close the photo.

Now I would presume that PS would free up the memory it has taken to process my photo but no! It now takes up just under 1Gb of memory with nothing open. There is nothing to purge and the only thing I can do is restart the program. This gets rid of the unnecessary baggage and things run smoothly again.

It’s just the minute or so of shutting down a program and restarting it again that I’m not happy about when I have to do it dozens of times every day.

Has anyone else noticed this behaviour and is this another "feature"?

Windows XP sp2, P4 2,6Ghz 1,2Gb DDR333 ram, 80Gb HD with programs and a 320 Gb HD with files and scratch (yes, I’m planning to upgrade the machine)

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RB
Robert_Barnett
Oct 22, 2007
No once Photoshop takes over memory it DOES NOT release it until you exit the program. It was designed to do this, like it or not.

Robert
JJ
John_Joslin
Oct 22, 2007
That’s not exactly right Robert. It will release it if it’s not in use and another application needs it. (In simple terms.)
I
ID._Awe
Oct 22, 2007
I agree with JJ, PS RAM usage rises and falls according to what you are working on within the app.

Windows controls the use of RAM, not the application. The memory usage thingie is a holdover from way back when…..

If it doesn’t then there’s something else amiss and therefore YMMV.
J
Jim
Oct 23, 2007
wrote in message
I have a problem with Photoshop CS2 – normally when I start the program it initially takes up about 63Mb of memory. After I’ve edited a photo (10Mpx files – about 200Mb with layers) I close the photo.

Now I would presume that PS would free up the memory it has taken to process my photo but no! It now takes up just under 1Gb of memory with nothing open. There is nothing to purge and the only thing I can do is restart the program. This gets rid of the unnecessary baggage and things run smoothly again.

It’s just the minute or so of shutting down a program and restarting it again that I’m not happy about when I have to do it dozens of times every day.

Has anyone else noticed this behaviour and is this another "feature"?
Windows XP sp2, P4 2,6Ghz 1,2Gb DDR333 ram, 80Gb HD with programs and a 320 Gb HD with files and scratch (yes, I’m planning to upgrade the machine)

Photoshop never releases memory back to the operating system. The operating system does not recognize the release anyway. This is the way that most if not all virtual memory systems work.
Cleanup only happens when the program exits.

However, is that 1 gb of virtual memory or 1 gb of physical memory?

Jim
RB
Robert_Barnett
Oct 23, 2007
Sorry your wrong Adobe personal have said on this form that once Photoshop claims memory it DOES NOT release it until you exit the program. Chris Cox I believe was one that said this. For some reason people seem to spend more time watching system resources on a little software gauge than actually working.

Robert
RB
Robert_Barnett
Oct 23, 2007
Sorry ID saying the memory control in Photoshops preference does nothing is just plain wrong. Adobe has an amount for that slider they recommend you not go over otherwise Photoshop becomes unstable. For a slider that is a hold over to days gone by it certainly seems to work.

Besides Adobe personal have stated on there that once Photoshop claims memory it doesn’t return it until your exit. Windows gives out the memory but it can’t take it back unless the program gives it up. Otherwise you could be running two programs, Windows has a brain fart and takes the ram back for one of them even though you are working it. Microsoft is bad, but not that bad.

Robert
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Oct 23, 2007
Photoshop requests from, and is allocated memory by, the operating system. The OS determines whether the memory allocated to Photoshop is located in RAM or in paged virtual memory (disk). If Photoshop isn’t actively using (reading from and writing to) memory it’s been allocated, and some other running program needs memory for active use, the OS will page out some or all of the memory allocated to Photoshop and locate the other program’s memory allocation to disk. Photoshop still has the same memory allocation, but it’s not located in the same place.

The Photoshop engineers know that there are substantial benefits, speed-wise, from having a large block of memory allocated and managing the use of that memory within the program, rather than constantly returning memory to the OS and then asking for more. That’s why Photoshop does not quickly release memory — it will typically be reused soon.
JJ
John_Joslin
Oct 23, 2007
Thank you Michael (I did say in my earlier post that I put it simply).

Roberrt should read up in the Knowledge Base and some of the Adobe engineer’s’ blogs before making such dogmatic remarks!
SS
Samuli_Siirala
Oct 23, 2007
Thank you all for your explanations. I think I understand this a lot better now. And Robert, people tend to watch system resources only when something starts going wrong. These days that’s part of the work whether we like it or not.

Hopefully, my problems will go away with the system upgrade… Thanks again for your time!
MD
Michael_D_Sullivan
Oct 24, 2007
There is a post on John Nack’s blog on Tuning Photoshop for performance <http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/10/tuning_photosho.html>. In it is a link to another blog post by Scott Byer and a presentation by Scott on the subject. There is lots of useful information provided by Adobe engineers about how Photoshop uses memory in these as well as other posts in blogs and in this forum.

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