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1/ When you move layers around, or when you put images on layers that are bigger that your background (or the size you want your definitive image to be), the unseen information is hidden, but still available. This uses up unnecessary memory. You can delete this info by Ctrl+A (select all) and then Image>Crop.
2/ Sometimes you may need to duplicate a layer with the intent to use the blending modes. This doubles the file size of this layer. You can also make use of an adjustment layer, for example Levels, change none of the settings and blend this with your layer. This can save you megabytes of memory.
If you're not very familiar with adjustment layers, know that they're just like Image>Adjust, but with some extra possibilities.
For example: the changes are not permanent, and can be applied to more than one layer at the time. You find them in the Layers menu, and also in the third icon from the right at the bottom of the layers palette.
Hey nice to see you drop by Vogonpoet... taking a br8k from the FXZone board huh? [righton]
Thanks for adding to Erik's post too... your added info ties up a loose end there.
In case anyone finds this interesting... the excess image information that gets hidden beyond a canvas's edges -- when an image is larger than the canvas area -- has been nicknamed "Big Data". So if you're out'n'about the boards, you might sometimes hear someone refer to the 1st technique above as "loosing the big data", "cropping the big data", etc etc...
Oh btw Vog... you know me as "theGuest" on your board. [excited]
hey thanks Erik and vogonpoet I have been wondering how to get rid of stuff of the "clip board" to speed up the program[excited]
Now that ram has come down again I might grab me some more [shhh] ........ oh and guys........ 17" monitors have come way down over here just over $300 aud or $150 US? - so I can pick me up one - perhaps for my anniversary next week he he he [bustagut]
yippppppppeeeeeeeeee
sfm
Great tip Erik... memory is the most important thing when it comes to drawing intensive apps.
if Photoshop seems to slow down after a while, you might want to change the "Physical Memory Usage" found under Edit-->Preferences-->Memory & Image Cache.
I think PS default is 75% but you might want to increase it to %80 or even %85 depending on your installed memory. On the same dialog box, you see the "Photoshop RAM" amount. It's NOT solely the physical memory used. Its both physical memory AND the virtual memory used so don't be alarmed if that number seems too high. If you run out of physical memory, PS will write the additional memory data to the disk.
One thing tho... Photoshop doesn't clean after itself. After you close PS, it leaves the temporary memory data on the disk so you might want to clean it manually. The temp file is usually under \%windowsDir%\Temp or \Temp\ folder. I have 512megs of ram and even with that, its not suprizing that I find 300-350 megs of temp file after I close PS
well the moral of the story is to install as much memory as you can afford. Photoshop is a memory hungry app .. greedy indeed... so memory is very important if you want a smooth ride.
Oz are you using 6.0.1?,because I am sure that update was meant to resolve the temp file issue that you just described above,but my memory is pretty bad so I might be wrong on this one
OZ you should not be having to "clean up" after Photoshop each time you use it. The last time i saw that problem i think was with PS5 or 4... and even then, not very often (for myself anyway). But you should definately not have this problem with PS6 -- if that is indeed the version you have.
And also... be careful about giving PS any more than 70% hard ram/resources. Especially if you have 256 or above. 70% should be more than sufficient for most any document. After that, let PS use the swap file/scratch disk to make get whatever else it needs.
Going above 70% will start to show an effect on your system performance, and could even slow PS down instead of helping it, like you might think it would. They need to be balanced -- PS & your OS.
It would be better to simply allocate PS a larger swap file. Give it a bigger chunk of your hard drive to use for swap. In fact... some guys even get a whole new drive just to let PS use.
Anywho... i thought i should clear that up a little. [:I
[bustagut] [bustagut] [bustagut] Mark....... "some guys even get a whole new drive just to let PS use."
I can see it now ................. honey thanks for the new monitor but could I have a 40 gb hard drive, my PS needs it............
do you think it will work? [bustagut] [bustagut]
I reset my ram in PS I had given it more thinking that it would help and my PS didn't seem any faster with the new ram allocation and my OS was suffering like you wouldn't believe but after you told me Mark a couple of months back I changed it again and now all is well again
sfm
It is the ideal situation for Photoshop to have plenty of RAM as Mark says, and to have unused areas on other partitions of the HDD's. Best is indeed to have the first two spaces on partitions another HDD than the one you installed PS on.
The reason is that Windows also messes with your HDD space and PS needs a non cut up and totally free space to put its data on.
Installing a second HDD is really easy, and you can often buy the "older" ones second hand. A HDD of 1GB is good enough.
If ever someone needs info on hows and whats of installing things on PC's, or a special way to install Win98 at the side of Win2K, feel free to ask. It can be tackled in the technical department.
Might look up my older posts...
Unnecessary use of Memory 
After you close PS, it leaves the temporary memory data on the disk so you might want to clean it manually. The temp file is usually under \%windowsDir%\Temp or \Temp\ folder. I have 512megs of ram and even with that, its not suprizing that I find 300-350 megs of temp file after I close PS
Linear Mode
