Some models do allow you to upgrade the RAM yourself, so be sure to check with Apple support.īy comparison, most PCs have removable RAM that can be replaced with higher-capacity modules.

Unfortunately, some computers have now begun to ship with RAM that is actually soldered directly onto the motherboard, for no good reason except to prevent tech-savvy users from replacing or upgrading their RAM at home.Īpple is especially guilty of this in recent years with their iMacs and Macbooks, which makes it very important to carefully select the amount of RAM in your system before you purchase it. There aren’t many situations where you’ll be able to use 32GB RAM (and I’ve actually tried!) If you can afford it, 32GB of high-speed DDR4 RAM is even better, since you’ll be able to do intensive Photoshop editing while still using your computer for other tasks. I think that 16GB should really be the minimum amount of RAM for professional users who demand a seamless editing experience. More RAM is almost always better, although once you get past a certain point, you’ll see diminishing returns unless you’re working on extremely high-resolution images with hundreds of layers. To learn more about Photoshop’s GPU requirements, including which features require a GPU and which just benefit from having one, check out the Adobe GPU guide. You may be able to get away with less, but you might run into technical issues as soon as you start editing images in Photoshop. Integrated GPUs share the available system RAM between general system usage and the GPU, which can lower your available RAM below the minimum requirements for running Photoshop.įor systems without a dedicated graphics card, you’ll need to have a minimum of 16 GB of RAM so that you’ll have at least the minimum requirement of 8GB RAM still available once the system has assigned some of it to your integrated GPU. If your computer doesn’t have a separate graphics card, you may still be able to run Photoshop, but it will depend on the amount of system RAM that you have. Instead, many popular Intel and AMD processors have an integrated graphics processing unit (GPU) that can perform basic graphics functions like displaying your operating system on your monitor and running simple games – but you wouldn’t want to rely on an integrated GPU for playing the latest AAA titles with fancy graphics.įollowing the same idea, you can definitely use Photoshop without a separate graphics card, but you won’t get the same kind of performance that you’d experience with a powerful graphics card packed with its own dedicated RAM and computation power. It’s time to get a bit technical (I know, I know, but it’s necessary jargon).Īdobe lists a graphics card with 1.5GB of memory as a minimum system requirement, but this gets a bit complex because a lot of systems designed for home and office users don’t have a separate graphics card. In addition to using it for Photoshop, your computer has to rely on the same RAM for basic operating system usage and any other programs you might be running in the background. I did a quick test on both my PC and my Mac to see how Photoshop used RAM in a real-world situation.Īt this point, you may begin to understand why Adobe has increased the minimum system RAM requirement to 8GB. However, many professional users add even more RAM to expand their editing abilities, installing 32 GB or even 64 GB of high-speed memory to ensure their computer will be as fast and responsive as possible. This is especially true if you want to use a 4K monitor or similarly high-resolution display because there are a lot more pixels to calculate at once. They suggest that 16 GB of system RAM is necessary to get an optimal Photoshop experience and that you also need a graphics card with an additional 4 GB of dedicated RAM.

What is the Recommend Amount of RAM for Photoshop?Īs part of their updated requirements for Photoshop 2021, Adobe has also released new recommended amounts of RAM to keep Photoshop running smoothly. In addition to requiring 8 GB of system RAM as the base minimum, Adobe also requires a graphics card with 1.5 GB of dedicated RAM to run Photoshop – although you may be able to ignore this requirement if you have enough system RAM (more on this later).

However, with the release of Photoshop CC 2021, Adobe has dramatically increased the minimum recommended amount of RAM to a whopping 8 GB, a four-fold increase. What is the Minimum RAM Required for Photoshop?įor many years, the minimum recommended amount of RAM for Photoshop was only 2 GB, which was easily surpassed by most laptops and desktops available to the general public. What is the Recommend Amount of RAM for Photoshop?.What is the Minimum RAM Required for Photoshop?.

Photoshop 2022 system requirements