imac Do i need more RAM for larger Photoshop images? (iMac 27 Late 2012 entry lvl)

[David Os]

So im a photographer and im working with this 46 MP camera producing 41-53 mb files, my workflow consists on Photoshop and Lightroom, Firefox, iTunes + some other app at the same time, iMac used to do well with 16 mp sized images but these new 46mp files are just massive specially when converted to tiff and turning into 400mb - 3gb files on PS layers and stuff.

Computer go Slow as s*** while switching between apps. (Though i'm using a 1tb hdd 7200rpm which i know it's not ideal for PS cache or saving big files but thats another lack of performance i know i'm not gonna get fixed) .

So im thinking about a RAM upgrade but i don't know if this will turn my workflow at least a tad better, i know im working on a 7 Year old machine. Based on my research, Photoshop and Lightroom don't use so much GPU and the Processors on these Apps are used mainly to export-import, and i dont have any problem with these tasks (i ignore so much things about this, i'm sorry).

I'm currently using the standard 8 gb of RAM coming out of the box, in case Ram benefits my case, should i upgrade to 16 (adding 8 more) or go straight 32 with brand new units? Thanks for the advice.

iMac 27" Late 2012 (First slim iMac, entry level)

Intel Core i5 2.9Ghz
8Gb 1600 MHz DDR3 memory
Nvidia Geforce GTX 660M 512

1Tb 7200RPM Hard Drive

[GrockleTD]

*laughs in windows* yeah another 8GB could help, don’t know how much though

[Bearmann]

8 GB is very low for those size files. Go straight to 32 GB. An SSD scratch may help a little bit, but your primary issue is insufficient RAM.

 

https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Adobe-Photoshop-CC-139/Hardware-Recommendations

[BrinkGG]

5 minutes ago, David Os said:

So im a photographer and im working with this 46 MP camera producing 41-53 mb files, my workflow consists on Photoshop and Lightroom, Firefox, iTunes + some other app at the same time, iMac used to do well with 16 mp sized images but these new 46mp files are just massive specially when converted to tiff and turning into 400mb - 3gb files on PS layers and stuff.

Computer go Slow as s*** while switching between apps. (Though i'm using a 1tb hdd 7200rpm which i know it's not ideal for PS cache or saving big files but thats another lack of performance i know i'm not gonna get fixed) .

So im thinking about a RAM upgrade but i don't know if this will turn my workflow at least a tad better, i know im working on a 7 Year old machine. Based on my research, Photoshop and Lightroom don't use so much GPU and the Processors on these Apps are used mainly to export-import, and i dont have any problem with these tasks (i ignore so much things about this, i'm sorry).

I'm currently using the standard 8 gb of RAM coming out of the box, in case Ram benefits my case, should i upgrade to 16 (adding 8 more) or go straight 32 with brand new units? Thanks for the advice.

iMac 27" Late 2012 (First slim iMac, entry level)

Intel Core i5 2.9Ghz
8Gb 1600 MHz DDR3 memory
Nvidia Geforce GTX 660M 512

1Tb 7200RPM Hard Drive

Personally, I'd start with an SSD, using Time machine to backup and restore, or Minitool partition Wizard on another pc to clone your old drive to the new one. That drive is getting murdered by PS. Adding 8 more plus the SSD is my recommendation. Though I will warn you those iMacs are quite the trip to take apart. 

[Origami Cactus]

I would change that 1TB hdd for an 1TB SSD, those are only 160€ these days, and for the ram...

Some photoshop files i have are struggling to fit into my 32GB of ram, thought that is when creating a 60mPix panorama from 10+ 20mPix images.

 

So go straight to 32gb, but 16gb would also be a big help for your use case.

 

The system being super slow is because of your hdd mostly, because of the page file etc being on it. SSD+16GB would be the best upgrade.

 

[badreg]

16GB is fine for just Photoshop and if you work on just one image at a time. I run 32GB, but that is because I composite 50+ layers, and run Lightroom and pano stitching software at the same time in Windows 10.

 

You can check the Efficiency % in Photoshop and see how you are doing with 8GB. If you are consistently above 50%, then just go with 16GB.

[Bearmann]

4 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

.......The system being super slow is because of your hdd mostly, because of the page file etc being on it. SSD+16GB would be the best upgrade.

 

No, that is incorrect. Photoshop uses very little scratch disk as long as sufficient RAM is available.

[David Os]

1 minute ago, badreg said:

16GB is fine for just Photoshop and if you work on just one image at a time. I run 32GB, but that is because I composite 50+ layers, and run Lightroom and pano stitching software at the same time in Windows 10.

 

You can check the Efficiency % in Photoshop and see how you are doing with 8GB. If you are consistently above 50%, then just go with 16GB.

 

4 minutes ago, GrockleTD said:

*laughs in windows* yeah another 8GB could help, don’t know how much though

 

3 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

I would change that 1TB hdd for an 1TB SSD, those are only 160€ these days, and for the ram...

Some photoshop files i have are struggling to fit into my 32GB of ram, thought that is when creating a 60mPix panorama from 10+ 20mPix images.

 

So go straight to 32gb, but 16gb would also be a big help for your use case.

 

The system being super slow is because of your hdd mostly, because of the page file etc being on it. SSD+16GB would be the best upgrade.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Brink2Three said:

Personally, I'd start with an SSD, using Time machine to backup and restore, or Minitool partition Wizard on another pc to clone your old drive to the new one. That drive is getting murdered by PS. Adding 8 more plus the SSD is my recommendation. Though I will warn you those iMacs are quite the trip to take apart. 

Just don't laugh at me guys XD, as i'm just holding my ass for those incoming Ryzen 3000 and building a new Rig with Noctua Cooler and tons of RAM already bought, is just i need to deliver Photos and bussiness is doing well so...

[Bearmann]

4 minutes ago, badreg said:

16GB is fine for just Photoshop and if you work on just one image at a time. I run 32GB, but that is because I composite 50+ layers, and run Lightroom and pano stitching software at the same time in Windows 10.

 

You can check the Efficiency % in Photoshop and see how you are doing with 8GB. If you are consistently above 50%, then just go with 16GB.

The problem with checking the efficiency is that he see that he is low on RAM (less than 90% efficient,) but he won't know by how much.

[badreg]

2 minutes ago, Bearmann said:

No, that is incorrect. Photoshop uses very little scratch disk as long as sufficient RAM is available.

This is incorrect. History states and cache are all held on disk.

[Bearmann]

2 minutes ago, badreg said:

This is incorrect. History states and cache are all held on disk.

Do you have four 8 GB modules of RAM plus an SSD cache? If so, take out 3 modules of RAM and see how well you do.

[David Os]

[badreg]

2 minutes ago, Bearmann said:

Do you have four 8 GB modules of RAM plus an SSD cache? If so, take out 3 modules of RAM and see how well you do.

I didn't say that Photoshop doesn't use RAM. I said that it uses RAM and disk storage.

 

Try running the Puget Systems Photoshop benchmark:

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Puget-Systems-Adobe-Photoshop-CC-Benchmark-1132/

 

This eats about 60GB of disk usage during the benchmark and I don't come close to running out of RAM.

[Bearmann]

Quoted directly from Adobe:

 

Photoshop reads and writes image information to disk when your system doesn’t have enough RAM to contain all of it. The Efficiency indicator can help you determine whether getting a faster hard disk or solid-state disk would improve your performance. If the efficiency number is usually above 95%, spending money on a faster scratch disk has little benefit.

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-photoshop-cc-performance.html

[badreg]

26 minutes ago, Bearmann said:

Quoted directly from Adobe:

 

Photoshop reads and writes image information to disk when your system doesn’t have enough RAM to contain all of it. The Efficiency indicator can help you determine whether getting a faster hard disk or solid-state disk would improve your performance. If the efficiency number is usually above 95%, spending money on a faster scratch disk has little benefit.

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-photoshop-cc-performance.html

Rather than taking this claim at face value, why don't you try running the benchmark and find out for yourself?

 

Or if you don't trust a 3rd party benchmark, just open a large file and perform a few dozen random actions (heal/clone, blurs, warps, transforms, resizes). Then, do Edit > Purge > All. Note your available disk space before and after, and you'll see that this changes. Photoshop writes to disk regardless of whether or not you have sufficient RAM.

[David Os]

1 hour ago, badreg said:

16GB is fine for just Photoshop and if you work on just one image at a time. I run 32GB, but that is because I composite 50+ layers, and run Lightroom and pano stitching software at the same time in Windows 10.

 

You can check the Efficiency % in Photoshop and see how you are doing with 8GB. If you are consistently above 50%, then just go with 16GB.

Well, about this, i tweaked a little bit photoshop performance settings, assigned an External Scratch disk and i'm getting 100% efficiency right at the file openning with 4 layers (3 curves with masking and one transparent of healing brush work)

[badreg]

Just now, David Os said:

Well, about this, i tweaked a little bit photoshop performance settings, assigned an External Scratch disk and i'm getting 100% efficiency right at the file openning with 4 layers (3 curves with masking and one transparent of healing brush work)

Your efficiency percentage will be at 100% until you start running out of RAM, so the indicator will only be meaningful after you perform a bunch of actions.

 

Try starting from scratch on an image with your normal workflow and see how you are doing after 15 minutes.

 

How much RAM are you allocating to Photoshop? Around 80-90%? If your main problem is the system being slow when switching programs, it may be beneficial to reduce how much you are allocating to Photoshop so that other programs have more available.

[David Os]

3 minutes ago, badreg said:

Your efficiency percentage will be at 100% until you start running out of RAM, so the indicator will only be meaningful after you perform a bunch of actions.

 

Try starting from scratch on an image with your normal workflow and see how you are doing after 15 minutes.

 

How much RAM are you allocating to Photoshop? Around 80-90%? If your main problem is the system being slow when switching programs, it may be beneficial to reduce how much you are allocating to Photoshop so that other programs have more available.

My PS Performance configuration is set as images show below, those are the tweaks i did, note that until this point i was working with default settings.

[Bearmann]

30 minutes ago, badreg said:

Rather than taking this claim at face value, why don't you try running the benchmark and find out for yourself?

 

 

Well, I do trust Adobe since they wrote the software and wrote the article Optimize Photoshop CC Performance > Broad Steps to Boost Performance > Optimize your Hardware Setup.

30 minutes ago, badreg said:

 Photoshop writes to disk regardless of whether or not you have sufficient RAM.

Yes, this is true.

 

I do agree that an SSD would be a great thing to have, especially at today's prices. Boot up, opening Photoshop, opening images, and saving images would all be much, much faster. A 500GB Crucial MX500 or WD Blue, for example, would be SWEET!

[David Os]

4 minutes ago, Bearmann said:

A 500GB Crucial MX500 or WD Blue, for example, would be SWEET! 

Yes, for my next rig i already bought one Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME M.2 for windows and PS, plus a WD Blue M.2 for scratch or caching.

[Bearmann]

David, that looks perfect. I was going to tell you to assign about 5-6 GB to Photoshop. You need to leave some for Windows and the other programs, however, I have heard of people assigning 100% to Photoshop without untoward effects.

[Bearmann]

Just now, David Os said:

Yes, for my next rig i already bought one Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME M.2 for windows and PS, plus a WD Blue M.2 for scratch or caching.

By the way, Photoshop depends more on single core performance, not millions of threads. Adobe has also been optimizing their software for decades to work with Intel and Nvidia. Do wait for Ryzen 3000 to check it out, but do your homework and don't assume it's going to whoop up on Intel in Photoshop. Keep an eye on Puget who will likely test it soon after it's available.

[David Os]

4 minutes ago, Bearmann said:

By the way, Photoshop depends more on single core performance, not millions of threads. Adobe has also been optimizing their software for decades to work with Intel and Nvidia. Do wait for Ryzen 3000 to check it out, but do your homework and don't assume it's going to whoop up on Intel in Photoshop. Keep an eye on Puget who will likely test it soon after it's available.

My main goal when building my future system is longevity, im waiting for those Ryzen cus Intel and Nvidia Prices may drop (and im going Nvidia all day long no matter the cost) but also there's a rumored 12 core near-5ghz AMD processor, i was actually putting my eye on the i7 9700k (recomended by Puget for Photo work BTW). So you recommend me Intel over AMD for my main work right?

[Bearmann]

2 minutes ago, David Os said:

My main goal when building my future system is longevity, im waiting for those Ryzen cus Intel and Nvidia Prices may drop (and im going Nvidia all day long no matter the cost) but also there's a rumored 12 core near-5ghz AMD processor, i was actually putting my eye on the i7 9700k (recomended by Puget for Photo work BTW). So you recommend me Intel over AMD for my main work right?

Today, I do, but once Ryzen 3000 comes out, we'll just have to see. Like you, I expect some pricing changes on both sides in our favor.

[ch3w2oy]

I work with files that are in the Gigabyte range with 16gb just fine.. I couldn't do a 50GB with 16GB as I've tried it for shits and giggles and took quite a few minutes trying to open it..