Reduce .psd loading and saving times

[Timothy Vermeiren]

Hello all,

I am currently having a little problem working with Photoshop: I am designing posters and other prints for a festival here, and we usually print the largest posters on A1 intl paper full color. That means working in a huge 300dpi file with quite a lot of layers.

The issue I'm having trouble with concerns the loading and saving of the files (the biggest ones are around 1.1GigaByte). Simply loading the file into PS takes over 5 minutes, slowing down my computer drastically. Saving the file in a .psd format takes even longer, over 10 minutes sometimes.

I doubt this is an issue with the computer, as it has reasonable specs and is only a few months old. So I was wondering if you guys have some tips as to reduce the file size of these .psds and thereby optimize their loading time. Because working like this is extremely time consuming and unproductive...

Thanks in advance!

 

[Steve]

I would think it "is" an issue with the computer.
How much memory is installed, whether or not you're running the 64bit version, the processor speed, the size and speed of your scratch disk, etc. will have a significant effect on performance.

What are your specs.

 

[Timothy Vermeiren]

I would think it "is" an issue with the computer.
How much memory is installed, whether or not you're running the 64bit version, the processor speed, the size and speed of your scratch disk, etc. will have a significant effect on performance.

What are your specs.

Thank you for your answer. The specs are:

Intel Core i5 M480 at 2.67Ghz
4GB DDR3 Ram at ~530Mhz
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 with 1GB memory

All of this on a 64-bit system, with the 64-bit version of Photoshop...

 

[Steve]

With 4GB of ram you might as well be running the 32bit version.
PS 64 bit will use all the memory your computer can handle, 32 bit will access 3.2 +/-.

You need to add more computer memory.

It sounds like this is a laptop with 1 drive, that's another problem.
Adobe suggests the scratch disk is a 2nd drive without PS or the OS installed on it.

 

[Timothy Vermeiren]

With 4GB of ram you might as well be running the 32bit version.
PS 64 bit will use all the memory your computer can handle, 32 bit will access 3.2 +/-.

You need to add more computer memory.

It sounds like this is a laptop with 1 drive, that's another problem.
Adobe suggests the scratch disk is a 2nd drive without PS or the OS installed on it.

Oh, I see... Well, I do have two drives so that could be a start as to make this work a bit faster.

Are there other suggestions you can give concerning this issue, the save settings of the files, etc?

 

[Steve]

Generally speaking the more memory the better and the faster the scratch disk the better but it sounds to me that you're just way underpowered.
Find your processor on this chart and see how it compares to the top of the line processor.
PassMark Intel vs AMD CPU Benchmarks - High End

With the size of the files you're dealing with I doubt more memory will help very much.

 

[Timothy Vermeiren]

Generally speaking the more memory the better and the faster the scratch disk the better but it sounds to me that you're just way underpowered.
Find your processor on this chart and see how it compares to the top of the line processor.

With the size of the files you're dealing with I doubt more memory will help very much.

Great, seems I have one of the worst processors on the list, scoring 2.7something.

Anyway, thank you for your help Steve!

 

[Steve]

Your welcome and stay active here.
Lots of smart, helpful, and talented people.