Photoshop is the holy grail of photo editing and digital art processing. However, just like any other application on Windows 10 or 11, Photoshop may also have problems. If your Photoshop keeps crashing or freezing, this guide will reveal some simple solutions.

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Table of contents

• 1. Reset Photoshop font cache
• 2. Disable plugins
• 3. Update the graphics driver
• 4. Adjust Photoshop permissions
• 5. Release RAM
• 6. Add timeout detection recovery
• 7. Repair corrupt system files
• FAQ

1. Reset Photoshop font cache

The accumulated corrupt font cache in Photoshop may cause computer performance to decline. To resolve this issue, clear the cache:

1. Exit Adobe Photoshop and other Creative Cloud applications.
2. In Windows, open File Explorer by pressing Ctrl E.
3. Go to "C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop ” folder.
4. Find the "FontFeatureCache" and "CT Font Cache" folders and delete them, then clear the Recycle Bin.

5. Try running Photoshop again and use it for a while. If the application still crashes, try the following tips.

6. Disable plugins

Plugins can bring extra features to Photoshop, but they can also cause problems. To rule out that they are the culprits of crash and freezing errors you've experienced, disable these plugins one by one.

1. Hold down the Shift key and start Photoshop.
2. Click Yes to open Photoshop without plug-ins.

3. If Photoshop still crashes, then plugins are not the culprit.
4. Instead, if your Photoshop is running smoothly now, you can try to find out the problem plugin.
5. In File Explorer, navigate to "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop ”.

6. Open the "Plug-ins" folder and try moving one of the plugins to another location to prevent Photoshop from loading it.
7. Repeat this until the problem plugin is found.

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3. Update the graphics driver

Outdated or faulty graphics drivers can be the cause of Photoshop crash or freezing. Follow these steps to update it:

1. Open Device Manager on your PC.

2. Expand the Show Adapter option and locate your graphics card.

3. Navigate to the Driver tab and click Update Driver.
4. Select the "Automatically search for drivers" option.

5. If new drivers are available, they will be installed automatically. If not, check out the next prompt.

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4. Adjust Photoshop permissions

Sometimes you may be dealing with broken Photoshop preferences. In this case, try resetting them, but before doing this, it is recommended that you back up the settings so that you can recover in the future if something goes wrong.

Backup Photoshop preferences

1. Open File Explorer using the Ctrl E keyboard shortcut.
2. Navigate to: "C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop . ”

3. Put "Adobe Photoshop Copy and paste the Settings folder to another location.

Reset Photoshop preferences

1. Open Photoshop on your PC.
2. Go to Edit -> Preferences -> General.

3. Click "Reset Preferences on Exit" and press "OK".

4. If you need to restore your previous Photoshop preferences, turn "Adobe Photoshop The Settings folder is pasted back to its original location.

5. Release RAM

Photoshop is a memory-intensive application that can consume 70% of the system's available RAM when used. You can free up RAM by terminating unnecessary background applications and allow these resources to be used by Photoshop. Please note that Photoshop needs to have enough RAM available when running smoothly on your system.

1. Use Ctrl Alt Delete keyboard shortcuts to access the Task Manager.
2. Navigate to the Processes tab and terminate any resource-intensive tasks by clicking each application and pressing the End Task button.

3. Start Photoshop again to see if there is any improvement.

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6. Add timeout detection recovery

Timeout Detection Recovery (TDR) is a feature in Windows that detects GPU response problems and resets the card if a timeout occurs. After increasing its value, you may be able to reduce crashes caused by too long response times due to Photoshop functionality requiring GPU input.

1. Open Run and enter regedit to open the registry window, and click OK.

2. In the left panel, navigate to "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers".

3. Double-click the "TdrDelay" key on the right.
4. Under Cardinality, select Decimal and enter a larger Value Data. In this example, set to 60.

5. Finally, restart your PC.

6. Repair corrupt system files

System file corruption is the notorious culprit that causes random crashes in Photoshop. Fortunately, you can easily fix this by running an SFC scan.

1. Enter "Command Prompt" in Windows Search, and then click "Run as Administrator" on the right.

2. Enter SFC /scannow in a new window and press Enter .

3. Restart your PC after the scan.
4. Start Photoshop and see if it works properly.

Finally, remember that it is a good habit to make sure your Windows is always up to date. This helps eliminate various problems in the system and may also have an impact on your Photoshop problems.

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FAQ

If I upgrade the RAM capacity, will Photoshop performance improve?

By upgrading the RAM on your computer, you can significantly improve the performance of Photoshop. Adobe recommends that at least 8GB of RAM be required to run Photoshop smoothly.

However, upgrading your RAM can give Photoshop more memory resources. More RAM means better image rendering performance, especially when dealing with large files.

You can also instruct Photoshop to increase RAM usage. Go to "Photoshop Preferences -> Performance" and use the slider to increase RAM usage.

How to fix "Scratch disks are full" error in Photoshop?

This error occurs when Photoshop has no memory space on your PC to store temporary files. An easy way is to clean your hard drive and leave about 20GB of free space for Photoshop. You can also check out other feasible tips to fix the "Scratch disks are full" error in Photoshop.

How to manually update my NVIDIA or AMD graphics card driver?

To update NVIDIA drivers on your PC, visit the official NVIDIA GeForce driver page and use the Manual Driver Search to find the driver update that suits you. Continue to download and install the new driver to your system.

For AMD driver updates, open the AMD software on your PC. (If you don't have one, you can download it.) Visit Settings -> Check for updates to find the latest driver updates for your system.

Image source: Pixabay. All screenshots were taken by Joshua Solomon.

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