Photoshop CS6 not releasing memory after closing open files

Question

When I first start up Photoshop CS6 on Windows 7 Professional, the application is using about 115MB of RAM.

After editing a bunch of JPG, TIF & PSD files, I close all open files.

Photoshop is now using 750MB of RAM, with no open files. The amount of RAM being used by Photoshop does not reduce over time.

How can I reclaim the RAM Photoshop doesn't need to hold onto?

My PC has 4GB of RAM, and a single primary HDD used for scratch disk.

Answer 1

I found the following response while Googling:

Photoshop keeps the memory for future uses to avoid memory fragmentation.

See this thread for explanations by one of its engineers.

Look also at this kb item or search for 'memory and performance" in the help files.

Answer 2

The obvious answer is Close Photoshop when you're not using it. If you have a limited RAM system, that's probably a good hygiene approach for most of your memory-intensive programs.

I looked at http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-performance-photoshop-cs4-cs5.html (which despite the URL also covers CS6) and searched for RAM.

The only obvious hint from there was to purge your clipobard (http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/optimize-performance-photoshop-cs4-cs5.html#main_Purge_Undo__the_Clipboard__and_History_states)

To free up RAM, choose Edit > Purge and then Undo, Clipboard, Histories, or All.

If that doesn't help, you may need to do a little more research on what the RAM is being used for. You could start here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ff700229.aspx with the Windows RAM map tool.