Why is PHotoshop so slow with high resolution files?

Hey Horizon, or for others...

render your layer styles by merging with a blank layer, or use a duplicate image with only your visible layers.

I'm 99% sure I use the highest resolution files in this forum. (credential time) i.e. I max out photoshop's resolution capabilities at least once a week. my posters of late have been a minimum of 720 dpi. 'nuff said.

In my opinion (which, by the way, you'll be getting alot of here at team ps) Adobe has done a fine job of allowing the user to customize the amount of memory allocated to Photoshop. What else could they do without actually selling you a dual 1 Ghz G4 and a gig and a half of RAM bundled with Photoshop 7 for 3 grand?

my 2 bits of advice:
1. turn off export clipboard in your preferences.
2. quit all other open apps
3. be sure your RAM allocated to Pshop is at least 85%
4. mellow out.

welcome to stay, welcome to go -
gg

The thing is, nobody really understands that the sample file I'm talking about is quite a complicated file. It has 5 layers styles, containing 8 (!) styles each (almost every style is being used), which makes a total of 40 styles and trust me, that's a lot of styles.

The file is called Yin Yang.psd

and is part of the Photoshop 6 Wow! Book CD.

The file can be found in:

Wow Project Images\Chapter 8\375-Seamless Tiling Patterns


The thing is, I never experienced a really slow Photoshop, but then again, my projects get complicater ever time.

It think it would be not much to ask somebody who has the same book (it's Amazons 6th best selling Photoshop book), to test it out and that would clear up a lot of things, trust me!

I just got frustrated because everybody thinks that there must be something wrong with my system, when I seem to have the same problem on two machines, one with version 6, the other with v7 (both win2k). Because of my many years of IT experience, I know that many times the best solution to localize a problem on PC is trying to recreate it on another machine that has a different hard- and software configuration. If I know that extensive use of layer styles makes the use of it slow, then I don't have to go through a whole process of localizing the real problem behind it. Working like that saves one a lot of time!

Sorry if got annoyed, won't happen again guys

Sounds like you sussed it out, but aren't paying attention to your findings or don't believe what they're telling you..

Layer styles absolutely slow down Photoshop; this is well known and documented. The more you have loaded as presets the slower your system will be, because they all get loaded into memory, whether you're using them or not. Layer Style presets are really just a set of instructions that tell Photoshop how to influence a layer or selection, but still, they take up RAM.

like I said, use a duplicated image, then merge your layer styles layers with a new, blank layer. Granted, this can mess up layer modes sometimes, if you're not careful, but take your time, and you can definitely speed things up. Our prepress dept. does this first thing when someone submits designs with layer styles. And, did you check your preferences? I'm using win2000 too, and I have lots of layers and layer styles, and I think this machine does a great job, all things considered.

Originally posted by Utopian23
Sounds like you sussed it out, but aren't paying attention to your findings or don't believe what they're telling you..

That's not the case. Don't forget, I come from an IT background and that's the reason how I learned to give as much background information as possible. I have come up with things like how much ram my file is, how much ram the machine is and what kind of drives I have and that my effiency reading in Photoshop shows 100%. This and a lot of other things are enough information for example, to rule out a lot of possible problems, but still people talked about that I should check out my scratch disk, memory, page file, hard drive etc etc, when some common knowledge tells us that this is not the reason why a small 890*890 file with 40 layer styles is slow, especially when I double check that conclusion by using Photoshop efficiency readings and the behaviour of my machine.

See, at least you admit that layer styles are slow and that it documented and that is useful information I can work with, because now I can focus on how to deal with slow layer styles, instead of going into endless discussions if there's something wrong with my machine, because there isn't; it's working perfectly fine for every program I use, stable as a rock, but it has cost me a freaking 22 years of experience to come that far.

Originally posted by graphicsguy
like I said, use a duplicated image, then merge your layer styles layers with a new, blank layer.

Yes, I can try that one

And, did you check your preferences? I'm using win2000 too, and I have lots of layers and layer styles, and I think this machine does a great job, all things considered.

No, nothing wrong with my preference, I even reset them using the reset key combination during startup.
Again, Photoshop is not slow for me in general, even with numerous layers, only extensive use of layer styles, slows things down. Also my machine can't be considered slow in its category. I have used PCMark2001 and 3D Mark2002 and my machine is amongst the speediest 1GHz machines that did the test, but then again, I never expected anything else considering my IT background and addiction for speed LOL
Like I wrote earlier, this can be an ongoing discussing about speed, but until nobody checks out that particular file, this discussion is closed. I just don't understand that nobody on this forums just takes 1 min to check out what I was saying and I bet that there are lots of people who have the same Photoshop 6 wow! book that I have :rolleyes:

By the way, nice web site!

sorry dude, I don't buy many photoshop books that aren't written by Scott Kelby. :D - I recommend those.

maybe someone else here has the book, or can check it out from some library or something.
\
good luck

Oh, one thing to mention: these slow layer styles are designed with 225 dpi resolution. Lots of people design for the web, 72 dpi and yes, with 72 dpi the performance is way better; probably the reason why some are confused about the speed of layer styles.

Yes, Scott Kelby is a great writer and when they publish the Photoshop 7 bible I'm going to be the first one to buy it.
I do think that you restrict yourself if you just focus on one writer.
If you read the work of different writers, you will have more ways to broaden your horizon, because every writer/designer has a different approach to certain design aspects. It happened to me many times that a different writer thought me more flexible ways of designing using less steps than an earlier writer.

Have you tried snooping around the Adobe User-to-User Forum with your questions? The Adobe engineers that hang around there might be better able to answer you to your ever-so-humble satisfaction.

Horizon, my horizons are broad. I just like to weed out the crap.

I think Deke McClelland does the "Bible" Series. He's damn good. I read his articles in PhotoshopUser every month.

Kelby does Photoshop 6 Down and Dirty Tricks, Photoshop 6 Killer Tips, Macintosh- The Naked Truth, and is editor of Photoshop User and MacToday Magazines.

I had lunch with Myke Ninness and Mike Brown from Adobe, too. Very nice guys. Very good books. Awesome photoshop artists. They are in the Thunder Lizard Productions Training Seminars, also, highly recommended.

I understand what you're saying, and it's great advice for younger, inexperienced designers to look into several methods rather than limit yourself by only studying one author. I agree.

good luck with your resolution. Keep us posted!