Winsage
June 19, 2026
Microsoft is collaborating with Adobe to enhance the performance of Photoshop, a widely used image editing software. The partnership focuses on optimizing operations within Photoshop, which is primarily developed in C++ and compiled using Microsoft’s Visual C++ (MSVC) compiler. Microsoft aims to improve performance for CPU-intensive tasks, particularly those that are latency-sensitive, such as brush responsiveness and file-opening tasks.
The engineering team activated MSVC’s "peak-performance" compilation mode and explored profile-guided optimization (PGO) to refine executables. However, due to the complexity PGO introduced, they shifted to Sample-based Profile Guided Optimizations (SPGO), which uses hardware performance samples from actual release binaries. This method allows for greater flexibility in data collection and typically yields performance improvements of 5% to 15%.
By combining MSVC’s peak-performance mode with SPGO, the teams achieved a 20% performance boost on x64 Windows systems and a 13% enhancement on Arm architecture. These optimizations resulted in improved responsiveness for critical tasks in Photoshop, enhancing the user experience in professional creative workflows.
