Is there any info here on improving efficiency, how well photoshop runs, how fast - I really cant think of the exact term right now - on your computer? How can I make things run faster? lol ANY help here would be greatly appreciated. Much much thanks!

Dawn

Hi Dawn,

I'm assuming you're using Windows XP here, don't know about Macs, or other operating systems. Windows has a lot of background tasks running using up processor time, most of them are unecessary, and many of them can be shut down.

For a good site with details on how to do this, and the precautions you should take, visit www.blackviper.com I believe he also has details for other operating systems.

This will not make any earth shattering improvements to your speed, but every little helps.

Also try cleaning out some of the crud that we all seem to accumulate, and try de-fragging your drive.

Run an anti spyware programme or two, just in case you've picked up any unwanted visitors on your travels.

But real gains are usually only made by adding memory or/and a faster graphics card.

Hope this helps.

How can I make things run faster? lol ANY help here would be greatly appreciated.

You don't mention anything about your system, but often the best first step is to buy more RAM. I'm familiar with Mac's, but I think also on Windows you can get a % display of Photoshop efficiency & scratch disk usage. If you're using the scratch disk much then you'd benefit from more RAM (assuming you're not at the limit Photoshop can use).

I'm not a hardware guy, so here's some personal experience.

If you get more memory, don't be too cheap.
That is, get good, quality RAM.
I used to get cheap, generic RAM, and it has always come back to haunt me.
Since I've started using slightly more expensive RAM, it's been all good in performance and shelf-life.

Also, concerning RAM, Photoshop CS has some issues with > 1 gig.
Lot's of folks have had problems and Adobe released a patch.

Along the lines of what Gary said, turn off some OS bells-n-whistles if you have them on.
My woman's machine has a bunch of system sounds, fancy transitions, and what-not, and her machine crawls compared to my spartan ways.

Another thing is to clean out temp file junk.
I've seen large OS temp folders bring machines to their knees.
There was this one guy that always 3-fingered his machine to turn it off... it was *bad*.
His OS temp folder was around 5 gigs of dinky temp files.
Once we cleaned it out, he was flying again.

All good suggestions. The one I might add is get the fastest 2nd HD you can afford and use it for your Photoshop scratch disc. You can use it for other things as well, just not for your OS paging file.

Excellant with the HD suggestion, Doug.
My hardware budy pointed that out to me once on my old machine.
I was using an older drive, and he said, "The second drive you have in there is your bottle-neck."
Swapped it out with a faster drive he had laying around (hardware buds are cool like that) and there was definitely an improvement.

He also mumbled some stuff about memory sticks getting along with my motherboard, but it went way over my head.
Apparently some memory/mobo combos were meant to work better together.
Other combos will work, but not quite as efficiently.
Can't say I know anything about it.

New here, but thought I would chime in. I have developed a habit of running Ad-Aware, cleaning out the temp folder and running a clean up utility a couple of times a week.
I am running a win xp with 1024 RAM and don't have much trouble with speed (now). I was having similar problems with "speed" before I began this routine. It takes several min's. to perform these tasks, but it is well worth it. (especially after my Grandson has been surfing the net on my computer - had 25 spyware items identified after his visit last night!)

Hi Doug,

Try installing Spyware Blaster to prevent infection in the first place. Its a free download from http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

If you are not using any other Adobe programs, go to preferances, find the "export clipboard" and turn it off. I was told that it was only used to take files from one Adobe program to another. Kind of hard to measure, but others that have done this said it really helped.....

Mike