Is it normal to use over 9,000,000k of memory (Private Working Set) when working on 3-4 photos with approx. 10-12 layers each while running CC??

Question

I started using CC in December with absolutely no issues. In April, CC suddenly started crashing on me when I would run certain actions that I have used for years. My first thought was that my computer was going bad. This began a two month process of eliminating any potential computer problems. Fixes were as follows:
Installed new SSD.
Installed new 2T storage drive.
Installed new video card and power source to run new video card.
I am operating Windows 7 with 16G of RAM on a quad core, which should be more than sufficient to handle the demands of CC. It worked fine for four months, so obviously it is capable of doing the job.
$400 later, CC still crashed while using certain actions.
As a test, I tried running the same files with the same actions on my husband's computer, which is a year newer. CC crashed on his as well when the actions were ran. After much head banging, tears, and communication with Adobe, it was determined that it's not uncommon for older actions to not be compatible with newer versions of photoshop. As a result, I spent weeks reworking my entire workflow to redo/remove the actions I had come to rely on.
Fast forward to today. I have fixed everything I possibly know how to fix, yet I still have to be VERY careful not to push CC too hard. I used to be able to work on 6 photos at a time, with 10-15 layers on each photo. CC NEVER crashed on me. Now, I can barely work on 2 or 3 photos and it will crash if I'm not careful about running one action at a time (instead of batching) and I have to keep my layers to a minimum. During the time I was trying to figure out my computer problems, I started paying more attention to my memory usage while CC was opened. Before all the changes, I would use 5-6,000,000k of memory with only 2 or 3 photos opened. AFTER all the fixes, I still continue to use an insane amount of memory.
Things to consider before offering any suggestions:
*Yes, I have re-installed CC about 5 times after my computer upgrades, mainly because I could not get my actions to populate. So I don't think a re-install will help.
*I tried removing most of my actions from CC, and it made no difference in memory usage. Besides, when I did the test on my husband's computer, the only actions installed were the few I was trying to test.
*I disabled auto-save and the recovery feature. Still no difference.
So, bottom line, my question is if it is normal to use so much memory when doing such simple tasks?? Most of my layers are levels, curves, fill, and a sharpening layer and noise filter. It doesn't seem those would be considered task intensive. Not only that, but also when I did the test on my husband's computer, I checked his memory usage and he didn't even break 2,000,000k at the same time I was using 5-6,000,000k for the same task. And he only has 12G of RAM. So SOMETHING is not right! Is there a setting I need to change so that CC is not so memory intensive?? I could see if I were doing 3D graphics of something, but these are simple photo edits that I have done for years without any problems.
Sincerely hope that somebody has some/any suggestions on how I can get the memory usage down so I can run CC as it's meant to be - fast and efficient!
Thanks in advance for any help!!

Answer 1

Thanks again for your suggestions Noel! I do hope that resetting my preferences will be a last resort. After my re-install it took me a week or two to get everything back to where I wanted it! For some reason, the way the computer techs set up my new drives, CC did not populate any of my actions/preferences/etc. I figured a round about way to get my actions to load, but it was a real pain in the butt!! I certainly hope I don't have to do that all over again. Although I will say that even before I got everything reset in photoshop, I was still having problems. The only thing I pulled into a fresh install of CC were the few actions that were giving me problems ( I worked with the defaults until I could figure out how to reconfigure everything). Before and after my changes, CC was still crashing on me and using tons of memory. Just something to keep in mind regarding my preferences being an issue.
Here is the information you requested. Hopefully the answer lies within! I have been in tears many times since April trying to get my CC/computer back to running the way it used to. This has put me SO far behind on editing I've even had to stop taking sessions for now. So I am VERY appreciative of any and all suggestions you can offer!
Adobe Photoshop Version: 14.2.1 (14.2.1 20140207.r.570 2014/02/07:23:00:00) x64
Operating System: Windows 7 64-bit
Version: 6.1 Service Pack 1
System architecture: AMD CPU Family:15, Model:1, Stepping:0 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2, SSE3
Physical processor count: 4
Processor speed: 2399 MHz
Built-in memory: 16361 MB
Free memory: 4728 MB
Memory available to Photoshop: 14679 MB
Memory used by Photoshop: 71 %
Image tile size: 1028K
Image cache levels: 4
Font Preview: Medium
TextComposer: Latin
Display: 1
Display Bounds: top=0, left=0, bottom=1080, right=1920
OpenGL Drawing: Enabled.
OpenGL Allow Old GPUs: Not Detected.
OpenGL Drawing Mode: Advanced
OpenGL Allow Normal Mode: True.
OpenGL Allow Advanced Mode: True.
AIFCoreInitialized=1
AIFOGLInitialized=1
OGLContextCreated=1
NumGPUs=1
gpu[0].OGLVersion="3.0"
gpu[0].MemoryMB=2048
gpu[0].RectTextureSize=16384
gpu[0].Renderer="AMD Radeon R7 200 Series"
gpu[0].RendererID=26131
gpu[0].Vendor="ATI Technologies Inc."
gpu[0].VendorID=4098
gpu[0].HasNPOTSupport=1
gpu[0].DriverVersion="14.100.0.0"
gpu[0].Driver="aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx64.dll,aticfx32,aticfx32,aticfx32,atiumd64. dll,atidxx64.dll,atidxx64.dll,atiumdag,atidxx32,atidxx32,atiumdva,atiumd6a.cap,atitmm64.dl l"
gpu[0].DriverDate="20140417000000.000000-000"
gpu[0].CompileProgramGLSL=1
gpu[0].TestFrameBuffer=1
gpu[0].OCLPresent=1
gpu[0].OCLVersion="1.2 AMD-APP (1445.5)"
gpu[0].CUDASupported=0
gpu[0].OCLBandwidth=2.25491e+010
gpu[0].glGetString[GL_SHADING_LANGUAGE_VERSION]="4.30"
gpu[0].glGetProgramivARB[GL_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM_ARB][GL_MAX_PROGRAM_INSTRUCTIONS_ARB]=[214748 3647]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_TEXTURE_UNITS]=[8]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_COMBINED_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS]=[192]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_VERTEX_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS]=[32]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_TEXTURE_IMAGE_UNITS]=[32]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_DRAW_BUFFERS]=[8]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_VERTEX_UNIFORM_COMPONENTS]=[1024]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_FRAGMENT_UNIFORM_COMPONENTS]=[1024]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_VARYING_FLOATS]=[128]
gpu[0].glGetIntegerv[GL_MAX_VERTEX_ATTRIBS]=[29]
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_VERTEX_PROGRAM]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_FRAGMENT_PROGRAM]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_VERTEX_SHADER]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_FRAGMENT_SHADER]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_EXT_FRAMEBUFFER_OBJECT]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_TEXTURE_RECTANGLE]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_TEXTURE_FLOAT]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_OCCLUSION_QUERY]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_VERTEX_BUFFER_OBJECT]=1
gpu[0].extension[AIF::OGL::GL_ARB_SHADER_TEXTURE_LOD]=1
License Type: Subscription
Serial number: 96040756894339264519
Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC (64 Bit)\
Temporary file path: D:\Users\Coleen\AppData\Local\Temp\
Photoshop scratch has async I/O enabled
Scratch volume(s):
  E:\, 930.0G, 665.3G free
  D:\, 933.0G, 852.8G free
Required Plug-ins folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC (64 Bit)\Required\Plug-Ins\
Primary Plug-ins folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC (64 Bit)\Plug-ins\
Installed components:
   ACE.dll   ACE 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.548223   79.548223
   adbeape.dll   Adobe APE 2013/02/04-09:52:32   0.1160850   0.1160850
   AdobeLinguistic.dll   Adobe Linguisitc Library   7.0.0  
   AdobeOwl.dll   Adobe Owl 2013/10/25-12:15:59   5.0.24   79.547804
   AdobePDFL.dll   PDFL 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.508720   79.508720
   AdobePIP.dll   Adobe Product Improvement Program   7.0.0.1786  
   AdobeXMP.dll   Adobe XMP Core 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.154911   79.154911
   AdobeXMPFiles.dll   Adobe XMP Files 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.154911   79.154911
   AdobeXMPScript.dll   Adobe XMP Script 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.154911   79.154911
   adobe_caps.dll   Adobe CAPS   7,0,0,21  
   AGM.dll   AGM 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.548223   79.548223
   ahclient.dll    AdobeHelp Dynamic Link Library   1,8,0,31  
   aif_core.dll   AIF   5.0   79.534508
   aif_ocl.dll   AIF   5.0   79.534508
   aif_ogl.dll   AIF   5.0   79.534508
   amtlib.dll   AMTLib (64 Bit)   7.0.0.249 BuildVersion: 7.0; BuildDate: Thu Nov 14 2013 15:55:50)   1.000000
   ARE.dll   ARE 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.548223   79.548223
   AXE8SharedExpat.dll   AXE8SharedExpat 2011/12/16-15:10:49   66.26830   66.26830
   AXEDOMCore.dll   AXEDOMCore 2011/12/16-15:10:49   66.26830   66.26830
   Bib.dll   BIB 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.548223   79.548223
   BIBUtils.dll   BIBUtils 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.548223   79.548223
   boost_date_time.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   boost_signals.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   boost_system.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   boost_threads.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   cg.dll   NVIDIA Cg Runtime   3.0.00007  
   cgGL.dll   NVIDIA Cg Runtime   3.0.00007  
   CIT.dll   Adobe CIT   2.1.6.30929   2.1.6.30929
   CITThreading.dll   Adobe CITThreading   2.1.6.30929   2.1.6.30929
   CoolType.dll   CoolType 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.548223   79.548223
   dvaaudiodevice.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   dvacore.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   dvamarshal.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   dvamediatypes.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   dvaplayer.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   dvatransport.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   dvaunittesting.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   dynamiclink.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   ExtendScript.dll   ExtendScript 2013/10/30-13:12:12   79.546835   79.546835
   FileInfo.dll   Adobe XMP FileInfo 2013/10/25-03:51:33   79.154511   79.154511
   filter_graph.dll   AIF   5.0   79.534508
   icucnv40.dll   International Components for Unicode 2011/11/15-16:30:22    Build gtlib_3.0.16615  
   icudt40.dll   International Components for Unicode 2011/11/15-16:30:22    Build gtlib_3.0.16615  
   imslib.dll   IMSLib DLL   7.0.0.145  
   JP2KLib.dll   JP2KLib 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.248139   79.248139
   libifcoremd.dll   Intel(r) Visual Fortran Compiler   10.0 (Update A)  
   libiomp5md.dll   Intel(R) OMP Runtime Library   5.0  
   libmmd.dll   Intel(r) C Compiler, Intel(r) C++ Compiler, Intel(r) Fortran Compiler   12.0  
   LogSession.dll   LogSession   2.1.2.1785  
   mediacoreif.dll   DVA Product   7.0.0  
   MPS.dll   MPS 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.535029   79.535029
   msvcm80.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005   8.00.50727.6195  
   msvcm90.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008   9.00.30729.1  
   msvcp100.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010   10.00.40219.1  
   msvcp80.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005   8.00.50727.6195  
   msvcp90.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008   9.00.30729.1  
   msvcr100.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2010   10.00.40219.1  
   msvcr80.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005   8.00.50727.6195  
   msvcr90.dll   Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2008   9.00.30729.1  
   PatchMatch.dll   PatchMatch 2013/10/29-11:47:16   79.542390   79.542390
   pdfsettings.dll   Adobe PDFSettings   1.04  
   Photoshop.dll   Adobe Photoshop CC   CC  
   Plugin.dll   Adobe Photoshop CC   CC  
   PlugPlugOwl.dll   Adobe(R) CSXS PlugPlugOwl Standard Dll (64 bit)   4.2.0.36  
   PSArt.dll   Adobe Photoshop CC   CC  
   PSViews.dll   Adobe Photoshop CC   CC  
   SCCore.dll   ScCore 2013/10/30-13:12:12   79.546835   79.546835
   ScriptUIFlex.dll   ScriptUIFlex 2013/10/30-13:12:12   79.546835   79.546835
   svml_dispmd.dll   Intel(r) C Compiler, Intel(r) C++ Compiler, Intel(r) Fortran Compiler   12.0  
   tbb.dll   Intel(R) Threading Building Blocks for Windows   4, 1, 2012, 1003  
   tbbmalloc.dll   Intel(R) Threading Building Blocks for Windows   4, 1, 2012, 1003  
   updaternotifications.dll   Adobe Updater Notifications Library   7.0.1.102 (BuildVersion: 1.0; BuildDate: BUILDDATETIME)   7.0.1.102
   WRServices.dll   WRServices Mon Feb 25 2013 16:09:10   Build 0.19078   0.19078
Required plug-ins:
   3D Studio 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Accented Edges 14.2.1
   Adaptive Wide Angle 14.2.1
   Angled Strokes 14.2.1
   Average 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Bas Relief 14.2.1
   BMP 14.2.1
   Camera Raw 8.4.1
   Camera Raw Filter 8.4.1
   Chalk & Charcoal 14.2.1
   Charcoal 14.2.1
   Chrome 14.2.1
   Cineon 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Clouds 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Collada 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Color Halftone 14.2.1
   Colored Pencil 14.2.1
   CompuServe GIF 14.2.1
   Conté Crayon 14.2.1
   Craquelure 14.2.1
   Crop and Straighten Photos 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Crop and Straighten Photos Filter 14.2.1
   Crosshatch 14.2.1
   Crystallize 14.2.1
   Cutout 14.2.1
   Dark Strokes 14.2.1
   De-Interlace 14.2.1
   Dicom 14.2.1
   Difference Clouds 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Diffuse Glow 14.2.1
   Displace 14.2.1
   Dry Brush 14.2.1
   Eazel Acquire 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Embed Watermark 4.0
   Entropy 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Extrude 14.2.1
   FastCore Routines 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Fibers 14.2.1
   Film Grain 14.2.1
   Filter Gallery 14.2.1
   Flash 3D 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Fresco 14.2.1
   Glass 14.2.1
   Glowing Edges 14.2.1
   Google Earth 4 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Grain 14.2.1
   Graphic Pen 14.2.1
   Halftone Pattern 14.2.1
   HDRMergeUI 14.2.1
   IFF Format 14.2.1
   Ink Outlines 14.2.1
   JPEG 2000 14.2.1
   Kurtosis 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Lens Blur 14.2.1
   Lens Correction 14.2.1
   Lens Flare 14.2.1
   Liquify 14.2.1
   Matlab Operation 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Maximum 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Mean 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Measurement Core 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Median 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Mezzotint 14.2.1
   Minimum 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   MMXCore Routines 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Mosaic Tiles 14.2.1
   Multiprocessor Support 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Neon Glow 14.2.1
   Note Paper 14.2.1
   NTSC Colors 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Ocean Ripple 14.2.1
   Oil Paint 14.2.1
   OpenEXR 14.2.1
   Paint Daubs 14.2.1
   Palette Knife 14.2.1
   Patchwork 14.2.1
   Paths to Illustrator 14.2.1
   PCX 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Photocopy 14.2.1
   Photoshop 3D Engine 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Photoshop Touch 14.0
   Picture Package Filter 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Pinch 14.2.1
   Pixar 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Plaster 14.2.1
   Plastic Wrap 14.2.1
   PNG 14.2.1
   Pointillize 14.2.1
   Polar Coordinates 14.2.1
   Portable Bit Map 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Poster Edges 14.2.1
   Radial Blur 14.2.1
   Radiance 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Range 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Read Watermark 4.0
   Reticulation 14.2.1
   Ripple 14.2.1
   Rough Pastels 14.2.1
   Save for Web 14.2.1
   ScriptingSupport 14.2.1
   Shake Reduction 14.2.1
   Shear 14.2.1
   Skewness 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Smart Blur 14.2.1
   Smudge Stick 14.2.1
   Solarize 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Spatter 14.2.1
   Spherize 14.2.1
   Sponge 14.2.1
   Sprayed Strokes 14.2.1
   Stained Glass 14.2.1
   Stamp 14.2.1
   Standard Deviation 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   STL 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Sumi-e 14.2.1
   Summation 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Targa 14.2.1
   Texturizer 14.2.1
   Tiles 14.2.1
   Torn Edges 14.2.1
   Twirl 14.2.1
   Underpainting 14.2.1
   Vanishing Point 14.2.1
   Variance 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Variations 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Water Paper 14.2.1
   Watercolor 14.2.1
   Wave 14.2.1
   Wavefront|OBJ 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   WIA Support 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   Wind 14.2.1
   Wireless Bitmap 14.2.1 (14.2.1 x001)
   ZigZag 14.2.1
Optional and third party plug-ins:
   Imagenomic Plug-in Console 1, 2, 0, 0
   Portraiture 2.3.3.0
Plug-ins that failed to load: NONE
Flash:
   Adobe Exchange
   Kuler
Installed TWAIN devices: NONE