My reply is coming from an amateur's perspective- Both hardware & software.
In the original question, Kevs mentioned that applications take a longer time to load after upgrading to Photoshop CC. I use a much different, and wimpier, Photoshop program (Elements), but after I did the most recent update, not only did that application take a much longer time to load, many of my other ones did too- especially Microsoft Office applications & Safari. The Photoshop Elements was the longest, at well over 3 minutes. (It used to take about 1 minute to load.)
What worked for me, and I hope it helps you, is that I uninstalled the Photoshop application and then used Easy Find.app to find all files related to it that got left behind by their uninstaller. I also removed all Adobe items, because for many, the Date Modified showed the same date that I updated Photoshop Elements. I did not touch any of the other applications. Then I re-installed Adobe Reader, re-nstalled the Photoshop Elements and then updated it. That application is still the slowest to load, but it was back to about 1 minute- before the SSD installation mentioned below. The other applications that got slowed down after the first update are now back to normal. I do not have any idea why this worked, but I hope it helps your situation.
And, in Post #17, Nick mentioned Macs as old a 2007 using El Capitan. I have a 2007 MacBook Pro using El Capitan and it works flawlessly. Actually, programs open and respond faster than they did under 10.6.8 (I made a giant leap). Then, I added RAM & a SSD. Holy Smokes!
The people on this forum were amazingly helpful by sharing ideas for how to upgrade & set things up, so don't hesitate to ask! Unfortunately, my wife's 2006 is stuck at 10.6.8 due to age.
Finally- About spending on an older Mac & doing the physical modifications...
Of course, the spending decision is yours alone. I agonized over 'Upgrade or Replace' for weeks. I ended up spending 155.00 USD for a SSD and 4 GB RAM from OWC- and they supplied matched RAM modules. For very little additional money, I also bought some repair parts from Powerbook Medic, like key caps, optical drive, top case, etc.
The RAM & SSD made applications open faster & process much faster. Examples- Photoshop Elements at it's best opened in about 1 minute. Now it is 14 seconds. It processes changes really fast. Microsoft Word was well over a minute to open. Now it is 3 or 4 seconds. Excel took over a minute to load an existing spreadsheet. Now it loads so fast that I don't have time to click the next one in the Finder list. (I'll open 4 or 5 spreadsheets at once.) My CAD program is crazy fast at rendering. All in all, it is like having a spiffy new computer. Wonder what would happen if I could have 16 or 32 GM RAM? Naturally, sooner or later, I won't be able to upgrade to the newest OS, like my wife's MBP, but it's already given me 9 years of service.
Installing the parts in my laptop was easy using guides from Powerbook Medic, iFixit & OWC- Not to mention all the help the people on this user group gave me. I'd have to guess your computer will be just as easy to upgrade. Powerbook Medic and OWC are awesome at giving advice and will help out if something does not go as planned- so no worries there.
I hope the Photoshop idea that worked for me helps you out!
Enjoy Today,
Paul
