upgrade to Monterey

[OceanBlast]

Is it save to update to Monterey? I have noticed my Mac has been acting up, I have cleaned a lot to make space and use "CleanMyMac"  from 19 GB yesterday today it keeps jumping to 6 GB left.  I have restored the Mac many times and shut it down too.

[Damien Symonds]

To be thorough, could you do this for us?  https://www.damiensymonds.net/thread1.html

[OceanBlast]

I have a Mac laptop running Big Sur 11.6 and Photoshop 23.3.1. It is over 2 years old, and has 8 GB of RAM. Its hard drive has 8.92GB free out of 121.02GB. The last time I shut down was just before posting this thread. I run a cleanup program about once a week.

[Damien Symonds]

Yeah, you have to get that 8.92GB up to at least 58.92, I reckon.

[OceanBlast]

should I just reset the whole Mac to zero erase everything and download photoshop again? (erase as if it was new)

[Brian]

Should you upgrade? Not with 8.92GB free. The reason you are having problems is the lack of HD space, plus only 8GB of RAM. I hate to say this, but your laptop is very underpowered. I’m sure you did this to save money, but it’s really crippled. Even 2 years ago it was crippled. 
 

I don’t think upgrading is going to “fix” anything, but nuking your laptop and starting over might be a possible solution. Since you have such a small HD, nothing but the MacOS and one or two programs can  be installed on the main hard drive. You need to be living off of externals, preferably Thunderbolt 3 drives if you have a TB3 port. 
 

One more thing. How much crap do you have stored on your Mac Desktop? The more files and folders you have on the Mac Desktop, the slower it runs. 

[OceanBlast]

I save all my things on external drives nothing on the laptop.  I even asked the apple guy telling him what I need the laptop for.

programs I use and need:

photoshop

bridge

PortraitPro Studio

Beauty retouch

Brother iprinter & scan

GTA imaging (photo lab here in Toronto Canada )

Clean my Mac

EOS utility for Canon ( to download my images)

Google Chrome

and Wacom tablet oh and x-rite 

Edited April 22, 2022 by OceanBlast
to add x-rite

[OceanBlast]

Also for future how many  GB should a desktop/laptop should have? So that next time I get the proper equipment

[Brian]

At a minimum, you want AT LEAST a 1TB Internal HD. A computer/laptop that has 8GB of RAM and a 250GB HD, is meant for GENERAL COMPUTING ONLY! As soon as you throw "Editing Photos" into the mix, you are no longer a "General Computer User." Plus, if you do decide to stay with Macs, the M1 Line, soon to be the M2 line...there is no upgrading after the fact. You must purchase all of the over-priced "upgrades" at the time of purchase. Give this article a read, I go over specs:

Buying a Mac in 2022 that's good for "Photo Editing."

I will warn you...the price for a Mac Laptop that's "Good for Photo Editing" is more than $4000 and it's not going to get any cheaper anytime soon. I'd honestly expect the price to increase.

[OceanBlast]

Thank you Brian and I read the article and it was very helpful.  I just didn't understand why from 19 GB it suddenly went to 8 GB.

I love how at the end of the article you have Donate beer to Brian lol I love beer too so will be donating for sure

 

Cheers!!!!

Edited April 22, 2022 by OceanBlast
cheers

[Brian]

You might want to give this article a read, too:

All About Memory

It's a bit long, but I tried to explain how memory works by using a Library as an example.

When it comes to a computer's main HD, it's not just the Operating System, Programs and your files, there are other things that take up space. One in particular is the Photoshop Scratch Disk. This is an area on the HD that PS will tap into if it needs resources. Because you only have 8GB of RAM, which in 2022 is just not enough, PS will utilize it's Scratch Disk more and more. Keep in mind that the Scratch Disk isn't a "fixed" area; Photoshop will increase or reduce its size as it sees fit. So it's not out of the ordinary for you to go from 19GB Free to something like 7GB Free. In fact, if you ever duplicated the background layer, your .psd file doubles in size. That's right, you read that correctly. So if you are running PS Actions that Duplicates and Flattens a lot, your .psd file size can easily quadruple in file size.

Combine that if you have a camera that is 24MP or more, you are already dealing with large Raw files. As time goes on, camera bodies will continually have larger and large sensors. In reality, you only "need" around 12MP. That's it. That's all you need to print any photographic print. Of course some will say they'd like more detail and I will say, "fine...16MP, tops." But the truth is, 12MP is plenty.

But that doesn't sell cameras.  

Anyway, back to memory. The PS Scratch Disk isn't the only thing that occupies space on your HD, the Operating System has it's own as well. So if the OS is trying to make PS happy by giving it more resources and PS in turn is using the Scratch Disk to increase performance, it's very common to have your HD go from 19GB free to as little as 5GB free in the matter of a few seconds. See why I'm so passionate about having at least 1TB for your Main Hard Drive?

250GB is Microscopic by today's standards. Even a 500GB HD is pushing things. There is so much going on behind the scenes that you don't realize and if you don't "Buy it Right" you will be running into problems, especially as the years go on. As of right now, 1TB is just enough to keep the OS happy, Photoshop happy, enough room for the temporary cache files to be happy, and enough room for some programs and even data files to reside on your HD. A 1TB allows your computer to "Breathe" a little easier. Anything less, and you need to be hyper-anal on what is stored on your Main Macintosh HD. 

Speaking of Hard Drives, I think I mentioned this above, but it's worth repeating. You never want to go more than 80% full on ANY Mac HD, Internal or External. If you do, performance takes a huge hit. Combine that with storing files and folders on the Mac Desktop, and that's a recipe for disaster. Why? Because any file or folder on the Mac Desktop is treated as an "Open Window," regardless if you are using that file or not. In a Nutshell, the more crap you have on the Mac Desktop, the slower the damn thing runs. 

Right now you have 8GB of RAM and a Full HD. Since it's a Mac Laptop, there isn't anything you can do except delete things off of your HD or dare I say it...buy a new computer. Apple has made it impossible to do any type of upgrading after the initial purchase. It's even worse with the new M1 line of computers. You are kinda stuck. I'd start saving, because as the years go on, Photoshop gets bigger and bigger and more bloated. They have to keep coming up with fancy tools to keep it interesting and for people to buy. In reality, Photoshop CS6 is all a Photographer "Needs."