How to speed up Photoshop?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Uwe Steinmueller
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Uwe Steinmueller

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I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 
What operating system are you running? I seem to get more
consistent performance from Windows 2000 or Windows XP
vs Win9x or Millennium.
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 
A couple questions first...

1. Which OS are you using?

2. Is there a lot of disk activity when opening files with Genuine Fractals as in your example?

Windows 2000 would be better to use than Windows ME or Windows 9X. If there is a lot of disk activity, then you are probably running out of memory. Increase the amount of memory on your machine if you can. Also, getting a faster hard drive will help with the disk activity. Look for drives with low seek (or access) times. A 7200RPM IDE drive or a 10,000 RPM SCSI drive would be good for disk IO.

Otherwise, upgrade your computer. Go with either a 2Ghz Pentium IV or with one of the newer AMD Athlon XPs. When you upgrade, make sure you are aware of the maximum amount of memory you can put in the machine. If you have a lot of disk activity when switching between applications, then you need more memory. Try for a machine that allows 1GB or more of memory.

Joo
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
Uwe
Get a G4 Mac with about 1 GB of ram, photoshop will fly.
Günter
 
IMHO the cheapest and best thing you can do is get more RAM. Prices are currently absolutely unbelievable! Try http://www.krex.com where 512MegaByte Dimms are just $52 each!!! However, you probably should replace all your memory with the same chips (still that's only ~$150). You will also need Win2000 (Ithink) to support this amount of memory. I have an 866 MHz machine, running W2000 (which supports up to 1.5GB), with 3 PC133 memory boards (1.5GB) that simply flies on photoshop (with big LS4000 100+ MB files - much faster than the G4/512 in my lab,... sorry) Such an upgrade may be a lot cheaper than changing machines (but make sure your motherboard will support 512MB Dimms).

John
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.
Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
Uwe
 
I'm unsure of GF's SMP capability, but PS will use it.

When running multiple proggies, the CPU will have to split its cycles between the programs and alot of system background tasks. With two cpus, the tasks can be split among the processors - dedicated if you want. With this, the slowdowns are minimal - unless you run enough to bog down both.

I/O is key - getting things in and out of memory - multiple hard drives to seperate OS/programs and Data. RAID would help if the IO is saturated.

Having enough memory is paramount to keep the disk swap activity to a minimum (and its soooo cheap nowadays to not get tons!!)

So, to run what you run, it is time to upgrade. A dual Mac would do nicely for the programs you focused on. I'm a PC guy, but I know Macs have their purpose - for those programs. Everything else... well, that's why I'm a PC guy.

Make sure you get lots of memory, several fast drives - SCSI can offload the IO channel if you have the $$$ to afford SCSI (SCSI only beats IDE in multiple drive situations). I strongly recommend a dual if you want to run multiple proggies at the same time.

One of my systems is a dual 700 - my 1Ghz laptop beats it on a single task - but running multiple (even just when the print spooler kicks in) then the dual doesn't slow down...whereas the single CPU has to split resources....

Good luck...
 
What about your swap drive? How much free hard drive space do you have? What is the speed of your HD? My PS speed jumped when I put a 7200rpm drive instead of my old 5400.

the PS user-to-user forums have great information on swap drives and what it takes to keep the software screaming.

Lastly, what is the % CPU useage? I max mine out for long periods of time, so I know I need a new processor. If you are not maxing it out, there are other things that need changing to speed you up.

HTH
David
 
Uwe,

It sounds like you may have a memory mapping problem, try running Norton Utilities.

Contrary to popular belief, too much RAM can actually start to slow down a computer, it has to address too many locations and memory can also become fragmented. I restart the computer to clear this problem.

Vincent
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 
What about your swap drive? How much free hard drive space do you
have? What is the speed of your HD? My PS speed jumped when I put
a 7200rpm drive instead of my old 5400.

the PS user-to-user forums have great information on swap drives
and what it takes to keep the software screaming.

Lastly, what is the % CPU useage? I max mine out for long periods
of time, so I know I need a new processor. If you are not maxing it
out, there are other things that need changing to speed you up.

HTH
David
By far the best thing for Photoshop is a second drive, just for the scratch files. The next thing is a dual processor board. The only reason the Mac G4 flies with Photoshop is the Dual chip design. Any Windows machine with a dual chip does the same. On a Windows machine it is extremely important to have Windows NOT manage it's swap file. After defragging with a utility that also defrags the swap file, (Norton) go to the properties in "My computer" and fix the swapfile minimum to a number at least twice the RAM you have and the Max to unlimited. Windows (not Win2000 or Xp) will after rebooting reserve a swapfile section on the hard drive that is contigious. In Norton Utils, you can change the properties of the win386.swp file to unmovable. The problem with swapfiles, Widows and Photoshop Scratch disks, is thatthey fragment and both programs have problems with figuring out where all the pieces are. At least that takes time. The Photoshop scratchdisk should be on an entirely different hard drive. That drive should be reserved only for that purpose. It is easy to buy a cheap, small but fast Ultra ATA 20 gig drive and partition it with a section reserved only for Photoshop. Once in a while, delete the .pst (photoshop temp files) as Photoshop sometimes forgets to delete them and they take up an enormous amount of space. With fixed swap files and a dual chip and a defragmented drive, you can take on any Mac. As for Genuine Fractals, the first time you save a file (or open it) it has to load the software and that takes time but after that (in the same session) it is much faster. Now if they only would supply a thumbnail so I can find these images easier.
Rinus
 
Hello Rinus,

Where do you tell photoshop where the swap file is. I agree with you its a major issue on speed of the larger files. If you create the new 20gb partion how does Photoshp know to go there instead of the default load.

Thanks

Paul
What about your swap drive? How much free hard drive space do you
have? What is the speed of your HD? My PS speed jumped when I put
a 7200rpm drive instead of my old 5400.

the PS user-to-user forums have great information on swap drives
and what it takes to keep the software screaming.

Lastly, what is the % CPU useage? I max mine out for long periods
of time, so I know I need a new processor. If you are not maxing it
out, there are other things that need changing to speed you up.

HTH
David
By far the best thing for Photoshop is a second drive, just for the
scratch files. The next thing is a dual processor board. The only
reason the Mac G4 flies with Photoshop is the Dual chip design. Any
Windows machine with a dual chip does the same. On a Windows
machine it is extremely important to have Windows NOT manage it's
swap file. After defragging with a utility that also defrags the
swap file, (Norton) go to the properties in "My computer" and fix
the swapfile minimum to a number at least twice the RAM you have
and the Max to unlimited. Windows (not Win2000 or Xp) will after
rebooting reserve a swapfile section on the hard drive that is
contigious. In Norton Utils, you can change the properties of the
win386.swp file to unmovable. The problem with swapfiles, Widows
and Photoshop Scratch disks, is thatthey fragment and both programs
have problems with figuring out where all the pieces are. At least
that takes time. The Photoshop scratchdisk should be on an entirely
different hard drive. That drive should be reserved only for that
purpose. It is easy to buy a cheap, small but fast Ultra ATA 20 gig
drive and partition it with a section reserved only for Photoshop.
Once in a while, delete the .pst (photoshop temp files) as
Photoshop sometimes forgets to delete them and they take up an
enormous amount of space. With fixed swap files and a dual chip and
a defragmented drive, you can take on any Mac. As for Genuine
Fractals, the first time you save a file (or open it) it has to
load the software and that takes time but after that (in the same
session) it is much faster. Now if they only would supply a
thumbnail so I can find these images easier.
Rinus
 
Hello Uwe,

GF is a big hog. I am running 512mb on a 1.2 mhz and Gf runs about as slow as on my older 900 mhz box. If you are printing or doing anything else while GF is running, not the save to Stn, but the actual resampling, then you will really see some slow times. On my 12 x 18's I get the same times you reported between 8 to 12 sec. Gf is a very numeric intensive applicaiton.

Someone already mentioned the location of the swap files, but degramenting is very important. As you are writing the larger files, especially when other applicaitons are using your drives, you will tend to fragment. A 12 x18 GF file is around 69 mb and sometimes if I'm not careful the file will be badly fragmented. I make it a point of defraging at least once a week on my drive where I do most of the image work.

Both of my drives are 7400 rpm, but I really don't think there is much diff. here. I do not use raid as I don't have a raid card and don't want the OS to be managing a raid system. I use W2K on all my machines.

Paul
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 
Is valid all that all the collegues said before, but you must consider also:

Another idea.

You need to add another computer into your workflow. One for picture processing and one for folder managment, printing etc. and connect them to share files and resources like printers, scaners, etc.

With this idea you can save money using the same computer that you have now and also the second PC will be a backup if anything happen with the first one too.

Also, when you are not using a PC to manage folders, printing etc, you can also process pictures with the second PC.

If you don´t want to have two monitors, two mouses, two keyboards, buy an a switchbox and you can easily switch between the PC´s with a simple button and still have control with the same mouse, monitor and keyboard.

That can help you a lot and save time, money and you are more safe working with two Pc´s than with only one with a lot of memory, hard drives etc.

Cheers

Giovanni
GF is a big hog. I am running 512mb on a 1.2 mhz and Gf runs about
as slow as on my older 900 mhz box. If you are printing or doing
anything else while GF is running, not the save to Stn, but the
actual resampling, then you will really see some slow times. On my
12 x 18's I get the same times you reported between 8 to 12 sec.
Gf is a very numeric intensive applicaiton.

Someone already mentioned the location of the swap files, but
degramenting is very important. As you are writing the larger
files, especially when other applicaitons are using your drives,
you will tend to fragment. A 12 x18 GF file is around 69 mb and
sometimes if I'm not careful the file will be badly fragmented. I
make it a point of defraging at least once a week on my drive where
I do most of the image work.

Both of my drives are 7400 rpm, but I really don't think there is
much diff. here. I do not use raid as I don't have a raid card and
don't want the OS to be managing a raid system. I use W2K on all
my machines.

Paul
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 
Hello Rinus,

Where do you tell photoshop where the swap file is. I agree with
you its a major issue on speed of the larger files. If you create
the new 20gb partion how does Photoshp know to go there instead of
the default load.

Thanks

Paul
Hi paul,

The scratchdisk location can be set in Photoshop 6 in Edit/Preferences/plugins and scratchdiscs in 50 and 5.5 the preferences are unfer File. Set the first three out of four drives all to your new drive and set the last to the drive you are booting up on. In case the second drive fails, it will still use the bootdrive for scratchdisc. Hope this gets you there.
Rinus
What about your swap drive? How much free hard drive space do you
have? What is the speed of your HD? My PS speed jumped when I put
a 7200rpm drive instead of my old 5400.

the PS user-to-user forums have great information on swap drives
and what it takes to keep the software screaming.

Lastly, what is the % CPU useage? I max mine out for long periods
of time, so I know I need a new processor. If you are not maxing it
out, there are other things that need changing to speed you up.

HTH
David
By far the best thing for Photoshop is a second drive, just for the
scratch files. The next thing is a dual processor board. The only
reason the Mac G4 flies with Photoshop is the Dual chip design. Any
Windows machine with a dual chip does the same. On a Windows
machine it is extremely important to have Windows NOT manage it's
swap file. After defragging with a utility that also defrags the
swap file, (Norton) go to the properties in "My computer" and fix
the swapfile minimum to a number at least twice the RAM you have
and the Max to unlimited. Windows (not Win2000 or Xp) will after
rebooting reserve a swapfile section on the hard drive that is
contigious. In Norton Utils, you can change the properties of the
win386.swp file to unmovable. The problem with swapfiles, Widows
and Photoshop Scratch disks, is thatthey fragment and both programs
have problems with figuring out where all the pieces are. At least
that takes time. The Photoshop scratchdisk should be on an entirely
different hard drive. That drive should be reserved only for that
purpose. It is easy to buy a cheap, small but fast Ultra ATA 20 gig
drive and partition it with a section reserved only for Photoshop.
Once in a while, delete the .pst (photoshop temp files) as
Photoshop sometimes forgets to delete them and they take up an
enormous amount of space. With fixed swap files and a dual chip and
a defragmented drive, you can take on any Mac. As for Genuine
Fractals, the first time you save a file (or open it) it has to
load the software and that takes time but after that (in the same
session) it is much faster. Now if they only would supply a
thumbnail so I can find these images easier.
Rinus
 
Hello Uwe,

GF is a big hog. I am running 512mb on a 1.2 mhz and Gf runs about
as slow as on my older 900 mhz box. If you are printing or doing
anything else while GF is running, not the save to Stn, but the
actual resampling, then you will really see some slow times. On my
12 x 18's I get the same times you reported between 8 to 12 sec.
Gf is a very numeric intensive applicaiton.

Someone already mentioned the location of the swap files, but
degramenting is very important. As you are writing the larger
files, especially when other applicaitons are using your drives,
you will tend to fragment. A 12 x18 GF file is around 69 mb and
sometimes if I'm not careful the file will be badly fragmented. I
make it a point of defraging at least once a week on my drive where
I do most of the image work.

Both of my drives are 7400 rpm, but I really don't think there is
much diff. here. I do not use raid as I don't have a raid card and
don't want the OS to be managing a raid system. I use W2K on all
my machines.

Paul
You are right Paul, I hope you read the other post re: scratchdisc location. The GF loading and saving takes a long time and it takes a fast processor but more memory seems to very little. I hope that the scratchdisc problem speeds things up. Epson has also a swapfile for its printer and that should also be moved to another drive/partition. It is in the printer setup/utility under the button "Speed and Progress"
Rinus
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 
Is valid all that all the collegues said before, but you must
consider also:

Another idea.

You need to add another computer into your workflow. One for
picture processing and one for folder managment, printing etc. and
connect them to share files and resources like printers, scaners,
etc.

With this idea you can save money using the same computer that you
have now and also the second PC will be a backup if anything happen
with the first one too.

Also, when you are not using a PC to manage folders, printing etc,
you can also process pictures with the second PC.

If you don´t want to have two monitors, two mouses, two keyboards,
buy an a switchbox and you can easily switch between the PC´s with
a simple button and still have control with the same mouse, monitor
and keyboard.

That can help you a lot and save time, money and you are more safe
working with two Pc´s than with only one with a lot of memory, hard
drives etc.

Cheers

Giovanni
Very good idea Giovanni!

I have a dedicated computer for accounting, CD burning and other file operations. Almost nothing runs on my Win2000 machine except Photoshop. Unfortunately Win98/ME users will have very poor swapfile management due to the fragmenting nature of its own Windows file system. Defragging is not a problem if the scratchdisk is on its own. The Photoshop scratchdisc is not removed until the program is closed and Win98 often needs a new boot just to get back to normal.
Rinus
GF is a big hog. I am running 512mb on a 1.2 mhz and Gf runs about
as slow as on my older 900 mhz box. If you are printing or doing
anything else while GF is running, not the save to Stn, but the
actual resampling, then you will really see some slow times. On my
12 x 18's I get the same times you reported between 8 to 12 sec.
Gf is a very numeric intensive applicaiton.

Someone already mentioned the location of the swap files, but
degramenting is very important. As you are writing the larger
files, especially when other applicaitons are using your drives,
you will tend to fragment. A 12 x18 GF file is around 69 mb and
sometimes if I'm not careful the file will be badly fragmented. I
make it a point of defraging at least once a week on my drive where
I do most of the image work.

Both of my drives are 7400 rpm, but I really don't think there is
much diff. here. I do not use raid as I don't have a raid card and
don't want the OS to be managing a raid system. I use W2K on all
my machines.

Paul
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 
Thanks again Rinus, I am rearranging some materials, then I am going to move the location for the scratchdisk, and you are exactly right on the Epson Spooler file. Actually I just moved my entire W2K spooler to another directory and gave it about 20 gb to use. The spooler is a big key when you are printing a 47mb file. All that material has to go somewhere and its not all going to be in memory at once.

Take care.
Paul
Hello Uwe,

GF is a big hog. I am running 512mb on a 1.2 mhz and Gf runs about
as slow as on my older 900 mhz box. If you are printing or doing
anything else while GF is running, not the save to Stn, but the
actual resampling, then you will really see some slow times. On my
12 x 18's I get the same times you reported between 8 to 12 sec.
Gf is a very numeric intensive applicaiton.

Someone already mentioned the location of the swap files, but
degramenting is very important. As you are writing the larger
files, especially when other applicaitons are using your drives,
you will tend to fragment. A 12 x18 GF file is around 69 mb and
sometimes if I'm not careful the file will be badly fragmented. I
make it a point of defraging at least once a week on my drive where
I do most of the image work.

Both of my drives are 7400 rpm, but I really don't think there is
much diff. here. I do not use raid as I don't have a raid card and
don't want the OS to be managing a raid system. I use W2K on all
my machines.

Paul
You are right Paul, I hope you read the other post re: scratchdisc
location. The GF loading and saving takes a long time and it takes
a fast processor but more memory seems to very little. I hope that
the scratchdisc problem speeds things up. Epson has also a swapfile
for its printer and that should also be moved to another
drive/partition. It is in the printer setup/utility under the
button "Speed and Progress"
Rinus
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 
Uwe

Another good topic

My travels with PS and GF ...

It seems PS will always build its work files using temp files (in WinXxx). I have seen its files swell to 2 gig from time to time.

It seems, the longer you work in something, with lotsa layers and history, again, that work file just blossoms.I have a gig on my box and PS always starts to chatter the disk before anything else happens as it inhales another file. Even if that file is just 10meg.

GF is a PS plug-in and, I would believe, it uses PS to manipulate any work files. Altho I can print just fine to my 7500 while PS or GF munches on an image, a 24x30 @ 720dpi takes GF about 15 minutes to spawn and PS another ten to process to the printer and another 5-10 in Epson before the printer wakes up. Takes about 15 minutes to print at UniDirctnl 1440dpi.

(These particular times are on a Dell 4300 1.5mhz, 256mb compooter.)

When I can afford it. My solution ...

Dedicate a machine just for PS things.
GF will use this machine

Image will be swallowed on this box but Printing will be done elsewhere on a print server from PS on this box
2gig of memory (1gig for certain)
The fastest Scsi drives I can get (15,000 rpm)
400mhz bus to the Scsi's
Dual Intel 2ghz processors

WinXP as it is being rumored to be more stable, faster startup/shutdown and runs the same programs 2x faster than my current Win98

Jon ...
 
2gig of memory (1gig for certain)
The fastest Scsi drives I can get (15,000 rpm)
400mhz bus to the Scsi's
Dual Intel 2ghz processors
WinXP as it is being rumored to be more stable, faster
startup/shutdown and runs the same programs 2x faster than my
current Win98
Who makes a motherboard that can handle 2Gig RAM and 2 P4 processors? Is this a fantasy or fact?

Thanks...
 
Vincent,

this might be the issue. I boot my machine probably once a week.

Thanks.

Uwe
It sounds like you may have a memory mapping problem, try running
Norton Utilities.

Contrary to popular belief, too much RAM can actually start to slow
down a computer, it has to address too many locations and memory
can also become fragmented. I restart the computer to clear this
problem.

Vincent
I use a PIII/800Mhz/768MB ram PC. Photoshop gets about 60% of the RAM.

Using Nikon Capture 2, PS 6.0.1 and Thumbsplus at the same time I
experience somerimes real wait times in PS.

E.G. opening a Genuine Fractals document or saving it. The computer
really stops and continues after 15-30 seconds.

I also have more than 1 D1x NEF file open.

Any ideas to improve?

Uwe (www.outbackphoto.com)
 

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