There are a number of ways to make PS run more efficiently, i.e. process images faster, in this post I'll describe those that work for me. I'll keep the explanation as clear as possible, and the methods used are applicable to all recent versions of PS and Elements (I think).
It is not a definitive or comprehensive list, and some may not work for you, alternatively you may have different but just as valid methods of achieving the same outcome.
This is not a narrative about what processor/memory/graphics card etc are best.
What I do hope, is that folks will contribute their methods of improving PS efficiency, and build up a body of knowledge that could be of benefit to both novice and experienced photographers.
Firstly Scratch Disk
PS Uses a portion of your hard drive as virtual memory whenever it has insufficient ram , by default this scratch disk is installed on the hard drive in which the operating system resides.
I've installed the scratch disk onto a separate internal drive to the system hard drive, and the scratch disk has exclusive use of this drive.
I achieved this by creating a partition of around 8 Gb on one of the internal drives, if you don't have a more than one drive, you could create a separate partition on the primary drive (if you have sufficient space).
It is not advised to create a scratch disk on an external USB drive.
Then in the edit-preferences (performance) menu of PS, I enabled this (partitioned) hard drive as my primary scratch disk, then unchecked the OS drive.
I regularly defragment this partitioned hard drive.
Diagram showing the Scratch disk:
Memory Usage
By default PS allocates around 55% of RAM to PS processes. I've found that by increasing the RAM allocation to 75 %, efficiency is increased, but this is heavily dependant on the kind of system (RAM, CPU etc), how I achieved this was to increase the memory by 5 % increments and timed how long it took to open a large tiff file, run a series of filter actions. I found 75% was optimal for my set-up.
You can access memory allocation in edit-preferences-performance.
I always have the 'Efficiency indicator' switched on, which is one of the menu options on the info palette pop-up menu (bottom left corner)
If the efficiency drops below 95% it means the scratch disk is brought into play. If it drops below 75% (or consistently below 90%) then you need to either allocate more RAM, or increase the RAM in your system.
Purge
If I find I'm carrying out a lot pf processes on an image or a series of images, the system can slow down. If I know I won't need any of the 'history' (prior adjustments) I'll purge the memory, this is activated edit...purge.
I'll only use this if I'm certain I won't need any of my previous adjustments of an image.
Bigger Tiles Plug-in (CS3 only)
The Bigger Tiles plug-in, which is located in the Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Plug-Ins\\Extensions\Bigger Tiles folder, is disabled by default. This can be enabled it by removing the tilde (~) from the file name, increasing the image tile size in Photoshop. This should only be enabled if you have more than 1 GB of RAM installed.
History states
The default history in PS is 20, that is each edit on an image is recorded (up to 20) so you can revert to that edit if needed.
I'm comfortable with the history states at the default of 20, but if you find that editing slows the system you can reduce the history states (edit...preferences) to a lower number, but you will sacrifice some opportunity to reverse editing changes.
Plug-ins
I have a number of third party plug-ins that I use, and also some I don't or rarely use, the plug-ins I rarely use I disable by putting a tilde (~) in front of the plug-in file located in the plug-ins folder.
Bridge
Generally Bridge is opened when you open PS, if you don't use bridge often, then you can prevent it opening by deselecting the 'Automatically Launch Bridge' option in the general preferences.
I don't pretend for one minute to understand all the technical detail behind PS, and how these processes work, all I've been able to do is to explain what works for me, in hopefully a clear enough language so folk can understand, also I'm aware that I could be teaching grandmother to suck eggs, and all the examples shown are being used by most, and that's fine
It is not a definitive or comprehensive list, and some may not work for you, alternatively you may have different but just as valid methods of achieving the same outcome.
This is not a narrative about what processor/memory/graphics card etc are best.
What I do hope, is that folks will contribute their methods of improving PS efficiency, and build up a body of knowledge that could be of benefit to both novice and experienced photographers.
Firstly Scratch Disk
PS Uses a portion of your hard drive as virtual memory whenever it has insufficient ram , by default this scratch disk is installed on the hard drive in which the operating system resides.
I've installed the scratch disk onto a separate internal drive to the system hard drive, and the scratch disk has exclusive use of this drive.
I achieved this by creating a partition of around 8 Gb on one of the internal drives, if you don't have a more than one drive, you could create a separate partition on the primary drive (if you have sufficient space).
It is not advised to create a scratch disk on an external USB drive.
Then in the edit-preferences (performance) menu of PS, I enabled this (partitioned) hard drive as my primary scratch disk, then unchecked the OS drive.
I regularly defragment this partitioned hard drive.
Diagram showing the Scratch disk:
Memory Usage
By default PS allocates around 55% of RAM to PS processes. I've found that by increasing the RAM allocation to 75 %, efficiency is increased, but this is heavily dependant on the kind of system (RAM, CPU etc), how I achieved this was to increase the memory by 5 % increments and timed how long it took to open a large tiff file, run a series of filter actions. I found 75% was optimal for my set-up.
You can access memory allocation in edit-preferences-performance.
I always have the 'Efficiency indicator' switched on, which is one of the menu options on the info palette pop-up menu (bottom left corner)
If the efficiency drops below 95% it means the scratch disk is brought into play. If it drops below 75% (or consistently below 90%) then you need to either allocate more RAM, or increase the RAM in your system.
Purge
If I find I'm carrying out a lot pf processes on an image or a series of images, the system can slow down. If I know I won't need any of the 'history' (prior adjustments) I'll purge the memory, this is activated edit...purge.
I'll only use this if I'm certain I won't need any of my previous adjustments of an image.
Bigger Tiles Plug-in (CS3 only)
The Bigger Tiles plug-in, which is located in the Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS3\Plug-Ins\\Extensions\Bigger Tiles folder, is disabled by default. This can be enabled it by removing the tilde (~) from the file name, increasing the image tile size in Photoshop. This should only be enabled if you have more than 1 GB of RAM installed.
History states
The default history in PS is 20, that is each edit on an image is recorded (up to 20) so you can revert to that edit if needed.
I'm comfortable with the history states at the default of 20, but if you find that editing slows the system you can reduce the history states (edit...preferences) to a lower number, but you will sacrifice some opportunity to reverse editing changes.
Plug-ins
I have a number of third party plug-ins that I use, and also some I don't or rarely use, the plug-ins I rarely use I disable by putting a tilde (~) in front of the plug-in file located in the plug-ins folder.
Bridge
Generally Bridge is opened when you open PS, if you don't use bridge often, then you can prevent it opening by deselecting the 'Automatically Launch Bridge' option in the general preferences.
I don't pretend for one minute to understand all the technical detail behind PS, and how these processes work, all I've been able to do is to explain what works for me, in hopefully a clear enough language so folk can understand, also I'm aware that I could be teaching grandmother to suck eggs, and all the examples shown are being used by most, and that's fine
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