djork said:
Hi all, I've been using a Sony vaio (2Ghz, 1GB RAM) for a while now.
Whenever I load more than 5 8MP pictures (fine quality), the PS programme will slow down, including its processes (sharpen, whatever).
Any idea why? Are the pictures taking up too much memory?
Perhaps it's better to give more details as in: how many layers for each image, how many bits are you working at..
1 8mp photo loaded = 8M x (3 colours x 8 bits)/8 bytes = 24MB only..
5 x 24 = 120MB ram only..
Windows needs 250mb
Photoshop needs 50mb at the start
Thus ram is not a problem (for basic manipulation), given that windows xp is hardcoded to to start swapping to hdd at 800mb..
try
1) reduce the number of undo levels. Perhaps it's set too high. Undo is good to have, but from past experiences it's the main thing that slows down photoshop overall.
2) be smart, work on just 1 image at a time. I'm curious as to why u would want to work on 5 8 MP photos at the same time.
3) You're only working on a laptop, your system IO is the bottle neck.
Repeat after me: Laptops are not ideal for PS.
Especially super PS jobs involving 5 8mp files with 10 layers each peppered with layer masks. Use a more powerful desktop if you need to do something like that. The swapping would be amazing..