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Scrolling through layers in photoshop doesn't necessarily just scroll a list though, it's also actively selecting the content of those layers... which can be ve

Scrolling through layers in photoshop doesn't necessarily just scroll a list though, it's also actively selecting the content of those layers... which can be very complex (I didn't watch the demo so I'm not entirely sure of the specific scrolling context). You're dealing with filters, transparencies, hand-drawn paths, masking, linked files, embedded files — there's a wide realm of potential data and complexity. If you want to test the mettle of a computer, try opening a large Photoshop file and doing anything in it. People who use Photoshop regularly totally understand the validity of that quick demo.

OskarS 8y ago
If you want to test the mettle of a computer, try opening a large Photoshop file and doing anything in it. This, right here, is why it's an indictment of the software industry. It SHOULDN'T be impressive that Photoshop doesn't lag. When she said that line, the entire audience should have shrugged and said to themselves "Of course you can zoom into an image in Photoshop. It's 2018. What's the big deal?"
- stupidbird 8y ago
  I don't know enough about software to contest that statement, but I suspect you could be underestimating the the complexity of what Photoshop does. We're also talking about multi-gig files. Outside of media the occurrence of an individual application file this large is pretty small. It's not like you can reliably play a 4K video file on many entry-level machines either. In a similar vein, I would argue that it's a better indictment of the industry that I sometimes have to close Chrome because it's hogging more resources than Photoshop.
  - slivym 8y ago
    I think the obvious point is that whilst what photoshop does is very complex and computationally intensive, it's not new. The vast majority of the functionality in an average photoshop file is the same as was in the product 15 years ago. We really have reached the point of diminishing returns. And doing those tasks 15 years ago wasn't slow, so it's questionable why photoshop hasn't scaled in speed with the hardware.
- Invictus0 8y ago
  I know you're trying to make the point that most software is bloated/slow/etc. but this is not the example to use for that point. Things don't just get faster because it's current year. The size of photos has increased by orders of magnitude since Photoshop debuted, the size of screens has increased, and the capabilities of the program have increased. In Photoshop, it is not only plausible but commonplace to have multiple 50MB files visible simultaneously, some raster, some vector, some text or shape. It's also worth considering that Photoshop only really uses 2 cores at maximum anyway.
  - olyjohn 8y ago
    > It's also worth considering that Photoshop only really uses 2 cores at maximum anyway. Seriously? I think this is more confirming that the person you replied to is right. Unless there is some reason that I can think of that only using 2 cores is a good thing?
    - Invictus0 8y ago
      Answering this question means you have to understand a bit about how computers work. More cores doesn't automatically translate to faster performance. Photoshop is lightly threaded for most operations. A cursory search brought up this link, but you should read up on threads and the difference between CPUs and GPUs: https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2017/20171223_2311-why-more-cores-often-dont-help.html https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2017/20171223_2311-why-...
    - derefr 8y ago
      What would you do with more CPU cores? One for the UI; one for CPU-only filters (if there are such a thing) and various other background workers like network downloads. Everything else—the rendering, scaling, compositing, etc.—runs on the GPU, not the CPU, where it uses hundreds of cores. Y’know, like a 3D game. And, like a 3D game, it’s still slow, because it’s doing something genuinely hard and your powerful GPU still isn’t powerful enough.
    - stupidbird 8y ago
      These are things that are processed better by a smaller number of more powerful cores than a larger quantity of cores. Multiple cores are really good at handling a lot of smaller processes. Photoshop just has a couple really heavy individual processes.
- MontagFTB 8y ago
  The demo file shown at the event was 12000x12000, 127 layers. It was 3GB on disk, 5GB fully loaded into memory. Double-tap to zoom was happening at 120Hz, fully animated, to anywhere within the document. I realize I'm biased, but on such a machine, the observed performance is anything but rudimentary.
  - kllrnohj 8y ago
    It's not impressive if it's not doing it with ideal sharpness in real-time, which it wasn't. Tiled zooming into arbitrarily large images is otherwise rather easy to do. Go plop the largest image you can find onto your nearest Android phone and it'll zoom & pan that image at 60fps with nary a stutter or issue. It will take a while for it to re-snap the sharpness as you zoom in, though, but so was the iPad Pro. How fast it was re-decoding at the new scale factor & crop is the interesting question, but one which wasn't covered. Otherwise we're just talking the same basic tech behind gigapixel viewers. Which isn't interesting or significant in the slightest, and has been used on mobile for years and years and years.
    - MontagFTB 8y ago
      > It's not impressive if it's not doing it with ideal sharpness in real-time, which it wasn't. Do you have evidence backing up this claim? > Go plop the largest image you can find onto your nearest Android phone and it'll zoom & pan that image at 60fps with nary a stutter or issue I've never seen an Android device composite, pan, and zoom a multi-layer gigapixel image with the same performance I saw today. If you have a video you could share, I'd be interested to see it. > It will take a while for it to re-snap the sharpness as you zoom in To let you in a bit, Photoshop was doing the recomposition of the destination region in real-time. And it's not just a single layer that's on display there, but hundreds, composited together while the user zooms in and out on varying regions of the document.
    - kccqzy 8y ago
      I've once tried using different devices to render a down-scaled version the full-stitch of XKCD Click and Drag. No device I've tried can allow me to zoom and pan at 60fps. On my Mac, there is some noticeable latency when quickly zooming or panning, and it's definitely not 60fps. I have no reason to believe any old Android phone will do it better. Now I don't doubt that an image viewer specially optimized for zooming and panning huge images like this can do it at 60fps. The typical image viewer likely does not.
- jimbokun 8y ago
  Then write a competitor to Photoshop that performs better, since doing so is not a big deal.

OskarS 8y ago

If you want to test the mettle of a computer, try opening a large Photoshop file and doing anything in it. This, right here, is why it's an indictment of the software industry. It SHOULDN'T be impressive that Photoshop doesn't lag. When she said that line, the entire audience should have shrugged and said to themselves "Of course you can zoom into an image in Photoshop. It's 2018. What's the big deal?"

stupidbird 8y ago
I don't know enough about software to contest that statement, but I suspect you could be underestimating the the complexity of what Photoshop does. We're also talking about multi-gig files. Outside of media the occurrence of an individual application file this large is pretty small. It's not like you can reliably play a 4K video file on many entry-level machines either. In a similar vein, I would argue that it's a better indictment of the industry that I sometimes have to close Chrome because it's hogging more resources than Photoshop.
- slivym 8y ago
  I think the obvious point is that whilst what photoshop does is very complex and computationally intensive, it's not new. The vast majority of the functionality in an average photoshop file is the same as was in the product 15 years ago. We really have reached the point of diminishing returns. And doing those tasks 15 years ago wasn't slow, so it's questionable why photoshop hasn't scaled in speed with the hardware.
Invictus0 8y ago
I know you're trying to make the point that most software is bloated/slow/etc. but this is not the example to use for that point. Things don't just get faster because it's current year. The size of photos has increased by orders of magnitude since Photoshop debuted, the size of screens has increased, and the capabilities of the program have increased. In Photoshop, it is not only plausible but commonplace to have multiple 50MB files visible simultaneously, some raster, some vector, some text or shape. It's also worth considering that Photoshop only really uses 2 cores at maximum anyway.
- olyjohn 8y ago
  > It's also worth considering that Photoshop only really uses 2 cores at maximum anyway. Seriously? I think this is more confirming that the person you replied to is right. Unless there is some reason that I can think of that only using 2 cores is a good thing?
  - Invictus0 8y ago
    Answering this question means you have to understand a bit about how computers work. More cores doesn't automatically translate to faster performance. Photoshop is lightly threaded for most operations. A cursory search brought up this link, but you should read up on threads and the difference between CPUs and GPUs: https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2017/20171223_2311-why-more-cores-often-dont-help.html https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2017/20171223_2311-why-...
  - derefr 8y ago
    What would you do with more CPU cores? One for the UI; one for CPU-only filters (if there are such a thing) and various other background workers like network downloads. Everything else—the rendering, scaling, compositing, etc.—runs on the GPU, not the CPU, where it uses hundreds of cores. Y’know, like a 3D game. And, like a 3D game, it’s still slow, because it’s doing something genuinely hard and your powerful GPU still isn’t powerful enough.
  - stupidbird 8y ago
    These are things that are processed better by a smaller number of more powerful cores than a larger quantity of cores. Multiple cores are really good at handling a lot of smaller processes. Photoshop just has a couple really heavy individual processes.
MontagFTB 8y ago
The demo file shown at the event was 12000x12000, 127 layers. It was 3GB on disk, 5GB fully loaded into memory. Double-tap to zoom was happening at 120Hz, fully animated, to anywhere within the document. I realize I'm biased, but on such a machine, the observed performance is anything but rudimentary.
- kllrnohj 8y ago
  It's not impressive if it's not doing it with ideal sharpness in real-time, which it wasn't. Tiled zooming into arbitrarily large images is otherwise rather easy to do. Go plop the largest image you can find onto your nearest Android phone and it'll zoom & pan that image at 60fps with nary a stutter or issue. It will take a while for it to re-snap the sharpness as you zoom in, though, but so was the iPad Pro. How fast it was re-decoding at the new scale factor & crop is the interesting question, but one which wasn't covered. Otherwise we're just talking the same basic tech behind gigapixel viewers. Which isn't interesting or significant in the slightest, and has been used on mobile for years and years and years.
  - MontagFTB 8y ago
    > It's not impressive if it's not doing it with ideal sharpness in real-time, which it wasn't. Do you have evidence backing up this claim? > Go plop the largest image you can find onto your nearest Android phone and it'll zoom & pan that image at 60fps with nary a stutter or issue I've never seen an Android device composite, pan, and zoom a multi-layer gigapixel image with the same performance I saw today. If you have a video you could share, I'd be interested to see it. > It will take a while for it to re-snap the sharpness as you zoom in To let you in a bit, Photoshop was doing the recomposition of the destination region in real-time. And it's not just a single layer that's on display there, but hundreds, composited together while the user zooms in and out on varying regions of the document.
  - kccqzy 8y ago
    I've once tried using different devices to render a down-scaled version the full-stitch of XKCD Click and Drag. No device I've tried can allow me to zoom and pan at 60fps. On my Mac, there is some noticeable latency when quickly zooming or panning, and it's definitely not 60fps. I have no reason to believe any old Android phone will do it better. Now I don't doubt that an image viewer specially optimized for zooming and panning huge images like this can do it at 60fps. The typical image viewer likely does not.
jimbokun 8y ago
Then write a competitor to Photoshop that performs better, since doing so is not a big deal.