RAM recommendation

Greetings-
I have a 2011 27" iMac with 8GB of RAM. I am getting a little slow, sticky performance with LR and PS lately--wasn't always that way. I'm wondering if I should consider buying 16GB more memory (I have two empty slots that can take 8GB each) from Crucial.
Wow...that would be 24 GB total!! I never would have imagined.....

Or is my sudden relatively slow performance possibly due to other factors?

I think only you can answer that question. Have you researched performance tuning for each app, and tried some recommended settings/steps? When you look at your system resources, how much available RAM do you have? I'm a PC guy, so I can't tell you how to do that, but surely you can figure that part out. =)

Find out what the bottleneck is.
http://macperformanceg​uide.com/Mac-Monitoring-memory.html

How full is your HDD for instance?
What version PS?

The minute an iMac starts swapping, performance takes a (huge) hit.
With somewhat bigger files, PSCS6 is faster on my 2006 MacPro then PSCS5 on a 2010 iMac.

René Damkot wrote in post #15532832
Find out what the bottleneck is.
http://macperformanceg​uide.com/Mac-Monitoring-memory.html

How full is your HDD for instance?
What version PS?

The minute an iMac starts swapping, performance takes a (huge) hit.
With somewhat bigger files, PSCS6 is faster on my 2006 MacPro then PSCS5 on a 2010 iMac.

Thanks, René. I went through all that basic stuff....HDD drive capacity, etc. And I am using the up to date, latest version of PS6. I'm actually thinking the slowdown may have started after one of the PS updates, but I can't be sure.
There have been no other noteworthy changes to my system.
Note--the HDD is only about 50% full. (I migrate my inactive files to a Drobo.)
Interesting to note that my Macbook is also slow. Though it was always slower (and older) than my iMac.
Same amount of RAM on each, I believe.

I'm thinking I should try adding the RAM. Can't hurt....right?
Thanks.

Use a PC for a few days, then it will probably seem quick again
I guess at least PC's slow down slowly as MS add 'updates' to slow it down so you have to buy a new one. Assuming you don't use Linux that is.

You could try, but at 8Gb, I seriously doubt more RAM will help. It is cheap now though, so no, it won't hurt too much.

The "suddenly slow" performance wouldn't be due to Photoshop or Lightroom, unless by "slow" you mean "instant everything".

Our systems are pretty complex and can have "bottlenecks"...

Check out this thread:

https://photography-on-the.net …&highlight=ligh​troom+slow

tonylong wrote in post #15535241
The "suddenly slow" performance wouldn't be due to Photoshop or Lightroom, unless by "slow" you mean "instant everything".

Our systems are pretty complex and can have "bottlenecks"...

Check out this thread:

https://photography-on-the.net …&highlight=ligh​troom+slow

Interesting resource on LR. Thanks...I have gone over that.
Now I am going to find a similar resource on PS since I sense sluggishness there and from plugins,too.
I'm also going to do some system analytics...if I can remember how!! Haven't had a problem in a long time....
Again, thanks.