Photoshop Question

When using Photoshop is it normal for the program to become increasingly slower when using multiple layers? I have noticed this mainly when trying to smudge things but other inputs, pen stokes (wacom tablet) seem to slow down too. I have a 1.5ghz system with 512mb, could getting more memory speed up operation or is it best to just use less layers?

Jason.

depends how many layers and what you are doing with them. Since XP pretty much needs 256mb to run, 512 isn't really enough ram for any serious photoshop work.

1GB of ram seems to be pretty standard for most people doing any kind of graphics work, particularly if your multitasking.

Photoshop/3dsmax/blitz/outlook/IE etc

Which I run pretty much continuously all day long, use up quite a big chunk of ram.

When you say "increasingly slower when using multiple layers," do you mean that the program runs slower as you add more layers, or that things gradually slow down any time you have multiple layers? The former is expected, the latter is not.

I use 1gb with Photoshop7 here, didn't have quite a good experiance using 512mb on my older PC with other apps in the BG running, especially when you're working with 1024x768+ resolutions with multiple layers...

Unsure of whether or not it also becomes slower due to drawing operations when you get multiple layers with alpha transparency involved though.

Check PhotoShop's memory settings. It's under the preferences somewhere -- you can specify how much of your system memory it is allowed to use, and also how many 'undo' operations to remember.
The more undo operations possible, the more memory it will take to remember all the previous states, and the slower things will get.

If you're getting serious with photoshop, yoreally could use a gig of ram.

Quicksilva,

RAM only becomes a serious issue when working with larger files, as disk swapping files takes over (and that can be slow if your hard drive is nearly full - worth checking!).

Even on modern PC's Photoshop in it's earliest incarnations is a serious memory hogger - it will take everything you have and more if it can, so if you are using a version previous to 6.x then I would suggest that yes its normal, especially if the dpi is high and the canvas size is large.

I would not say that it is layers as much as what you are doing with them, I think there's a 100 layers limit anyways (used to be).

Are you working in CMYK or RGB?

What DPI are you working at? 300dpi for print would soon bring a reasonable system to its knees if you were working at large canvas sizes. For B3d work you should be working at between 72dpi as the resolution is lost to monitor technology.

You can find out the dpi when you make a new document, if it is set up to be 300dpi you may wish to alter that.

For anyone who wants to get some really ace video tips using photoshop, go here:

www.learnflash.com and search out the photoshop video tutorials.

I hope some of that is helpful or useful.

IPete2.

Actually, the dpi setting is irrelevant for display on computer monitors (eg. textures to use in Blitz3D.) What matters is pixel dimensions (ie. how many pixels the image is comprised of.) The word "resolution" is overloaded and thus confusing to most people. Seriously, I've devoted entire class sessions to just explaining "resolution" to graphic design students learning Photoshop.

@ jhocking - Aaaah, if I had a pound for every time I've tried to explain resolution to a graphics student... They just don't seem to get it for some reason. Had one this morning for instance who rather than rendering an image in 3DS Max, opted to do a screengrab instead. Then he wanted to know how he could make it look 'smooth' when he printed it out at A1!

He also seemed kind of surprised that Photoshop's 'sharpen' filter didn't solve the problem.

Hehe, so true. I've seen many colleagues (and one or two
proffessors!) confuse resolutions, dpi and their meaning.

DPI is only relevant when printing a document onto a
piece of paper. Dpi is a printer attribute.

Right?

yar!

Used to get even more confusing once you get got to a printers, as they used screen filters for getting halftones that had completely different resolutions yet again.

I hated printing and production studies in the early 90's when we still used those old scantext and linotype machines, paste boards, and only got to use a Mac in our final year.

that and the grant projectors and doing type by hand for 2 years put me off of Graphic design, and typography for life lol.

jhocking: Yep, I meant the more layers I add the slower things go, I guess this is expected though. Will adding more memory really make a difference to this in particular problem as I rarely edit huge images. Is there much of a visual difference? Apart from this Photoshop is nice and smooth so I am not sure that it is worth upgrading if its not going to make much difference. Will this slowdown still be apparent on a 1gb system? The problem isn`t major I`m just curious what causes it, processor or ram or just a reality of working with layers.

Thanks,
Jason.

QuickSilva, if you are running Windows, you can check your
ram usage in realtime in the ctrl-alt-delete window. Have
you tried that?
If your total usage is still below 512 when you get the
slowdown then you are probably cpu-limited and you might
consider upgrading that first.

Joe,

Hmm, I'm interested in learning more about this, please explain... doesn't the dpi setting matter when you are manipulating data in memory though? Forget saving for whatever, if you are using a higher dpi setting on your document, then your are automatically using more memory is that not right??

Or does the dpi setting only come into use when you are exporting data to a printer or file???

Sorry, but now I'm confused...

IPete2.

You've got it.
Say in photoshop, if you have a 3000^2 pixel image.

Print it at 300 dpi and your image will be 10^2 inches

Print it at 72 dpi and you will need a 43^2 inch paper.

But the memory in the computer will always be storing
3000^2 pixels, regardless of the dpi the image is set to print at.

DPI stands for Dots Per Inch and only matters for printing. For screen display dpi is irrelevant and the size of an image onscreen is determined only by how many pixels it is comprised of, along with the size of the monitor and the resolution (damn that word!) of the end users display.

As for memory usage, note that the filesize of an image is also determined by it's pixel dimensions. The dpi setting is just one little number tagged in the file somewhere.

To verify this, just save two images with the same pixel dimensions but different resolutions and observe both their filesize and appearance on-screen. They will be exactly the same; now if you print the images things will be different.

Note that Photoshop muddies the issue by automatically changing the pixel dimensions when you change the dpi, so in the Image Size dialog you have to first change the dpi and then change the pixel dimensions back to what they were originally.

What drew and jhocking said.

Except that last paragraph. Rather than having to change the pixel dimensions back manually after changing the dpi, just make sure upon opening the 'Image Size' dialog that the 'Resample Image' box is unchecked. The pixel dimensions will then be locked.

Believe me, this is all quite simple. Its just very difficult to explain clearly...

Photoshop = 1GiB needed. No messing.

If you're a pro Photoshop user, you might want to be looking at anywhere between 2 and 8GiB depending on exactly how many high resolution 48 bit colour photographs you are compositing.

Not really, considering that XP has a 4GB max. and by default will only have the first 2GB accessible by applications (the other 2GB is for use by the OS itself)
You can tweak some of the startup settings and allocate up to 3GB to your applications, but more than 4GB is completely pointless, at least with the 32-bit version of WinXP which he's likely to be running.

And you do definitely run into diminishing returns: the difference between 512MB and 1 GB will be more noticable than 1GB->2GB...

Well I'll be a monkey's uncle, I didn't know that. Thanks! Man, after all these years, I'm still learning nifty little tricks.

xlsior: Sorry, I was thinking in Mac ;) My bad.

Ah ok,

thanks for clearing that up Joe, I knew what dpi stood for, but I misunderstood what it meant. I also originally thought that memory was set aside for higher dpi documents than lower dpi ones.

You see if I scan at a high dpi on my scanner that seems to produce a bigger, higher quality document, but if I use a lower dpi the file size does change drastically.

DPI is what counts to make a higher quality document, and naturally creates a bigger width and height, therefore using more memory - I thought they were all tied into each other.

I knew the width and height in pixels counts (I think I said in my original post that "RAM only becomes a serious issue when working with larger files") - I meant bigger on screen and in memory terms.

I still find it difficult to understand this bit really - "The dpi setting is just one little number tagged in the file somewhere."

But I'll take your word for it as I don't know enough about it all.

It is an interesting subject and one that is a little cleare now... er I think.

IPete2.

Photoshop 7 works fine for me with 256MB RAM on Windows XP...

See if this helps.

Imagine that you have a hundred tiny ball-bearings (representing pixels). You can lay them out on the carpet in a tight ten by ten ball-bearing grid so that the square they form is only an inch across (high resolution) or you can spread them out so that they form a ten by ten ball-bearing grid which is a metre across (low resolution). Despite the two squares being different sizes, they are each formed from the same number of ball-bearings which will of course take the same amount of space to store away (file size).

Imagine now that when you do store them away you add a little note specifying how closely the ball-bearings should be placed when they are laid out again (resolution). The note can specify a low resolution or a high resolution but it won't take up less or more space itself because its just an instruction. That's what the other Joe means.


Me too! Here are a few handy Photoshop viewing/zooming tips in case you weren't aware of any of them.

Double-click the zoom tool icon in the toolbar to zoom to 'actual size' - ie each pixel on screen represents one pixel in your image.

Double-click the hand tool icon in the toolbar to zoom all the way out again.

Drag a rectangle using the zoom tool to quickly zoom in on a specific area.

Hold down spacebar to temporarily switch to the hand tool - very useful for scrolling around while zoomed in.

Press 'tab' to hide/show all active palettes and the toolbar.

Better stop there. Hope you find something useful.

Joe,

Thanks for that explanation that makes more sense to me now. I love these forums they are so jam packed full of clever people, prepared to help others.

:) thanks,

IPete2.

Hey JoeGr, would you or anyone here happen to have a fix for this:

In photoshop, you can't scroll the image past the screen's
edge. For example, if you are zoomed into something and
scroll as far to the left as you can, the left edge of your
image will go as far as the exact edge of your monitor and
that's all. This is a horrible design flaw and I was wondering
if you guys might have a fix or knowledge of a workaround.

One way is to press 'F' (for 'Fullscreen'? - I forget). Then you can use the hand tool to scroll past the edge. Press 'F' twice more (I think its twice) to return the view to normal.

Hmm, mine doesn't do that. I'm using 7.0, you?
I love photoshopping in 'f' mode.
Just like I love working in 3DSMax in 'expert' mode. So much freedom!

If you like 3DSMax's expert mode, you should see Maya with all UI elements and menu bars turned off. hotbox ftw!

Drew, sorry about that. It might only work with CS or CS2 when I think about it.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the tips guys it has helped a lot.

Jason.

No problem, QuickSilva.

Now JoeGr, I am here at the school, using CS2. Now it works. Thanks.