I’ve heard from several people that they have issues with the Brush tool (B) being laggy. Has this ever happened to you? When you make a brushstroke, the stroke creeps across your screen in slow motion. When you grab a brush, you’ll see the Smoothing option at the top in the Options Bar. If you set Smoothing to 0%, the brush should be much faster. If you’re an illustrator or painter, using higher Smoothing values will eliminate micro jitters and help you achieve smoother-looking strokes, but it comes at the cost of performance. If you don’t draw or paint, and only retouch, turn it to zero and leave it there.
This tip originally published in Colin Smith’s “Photoshop Tips” column in the July, 2023 issue of Photoshop User magazine.