CS2 Slow...

[Prism1]

It takes forever to open and save files...say a 600 to 900 meg file, 2 to 5 mins. I have a dual Xeon 3.2, 4 gigs of ram, fast drives ( not full ), and just installed a 256 meg video card...still a poodle when it comes to saving files. Any suggestions, or is this just the way it is??

 

[Pro Signs & Graphix]

Is there a way you can cut down your file size. That is part of your problem, although the makority of it.

Next you say "fast drives" but what are they? Drives are always a neglected part of the "speed formula".

 

[signage]

Do you have Microsoft Office or word on you system? If so look into fastfind! it could be part of your problem.

 

[signmeup]

Signage,

Please explian "fastfind". CS2 is dog slow on my machine too. It takes ages just to open the program.

 

[Rod]

FastFind is an file indexing utility that bogs system

Please explian "fastfind". CS2 is dog slow on my machine too. It takes ages just to open the program.

Office 97 had a default install of FastFind, which would automatically search through and catalogue your hard drive files for "fast" searching. However, it would bog down your system noticeable when doing the initial search and performing updates.

Another thing for Prism1 to check is whether a virus scan is in progress, or any other automated spyware scans are taking place.

Rod

 

[Checkers]

I have to think that something's not right. Besides what's already been mentioned, how do you have the program to set up to handle memory and scratch disk(s)? The settings should be under Edit - Preferences - Plug-ins & Scratch Disks.
While you're there, Also look at your memory and image cache.

Checkers

 

[tdgraphics]

Just a point on the scratch disk / disks. They should not be the C: drive, your scratch disks should be located on different drives than the programs and data files are on.

I have a 40GB hard disk used only for the scratch disk for Illustrator and Photoshop.

To be fair though, the size of files you are using seems rather large, why don't to link items in rather than have everything within a single file.

 

[javila]

Little trick I found for saving larges files is to hide all the layers, you lose the preview but it'll basically skip the "rendering preview" portion of the save which is usually about half of the save time.

 

[Ian Stewart-Koster]

Prism, is the 600-900 meg file a tiff, saved at that size, or a jpg saved at that size, or an ai file with merged jpgs, or what?
I worked on a file the other day that was a 600 meg tiff, and slooow to work with, but when saved as a jpg with max quality, it shrank to 35 meg- that was in P'shp though. I only had 512 meg of ram so of course the file has to sit on the scratch disc in various proportions as it got figured out.

YOu haven't said if it's Illy or P'shp you're bogged down with. It's unlikely you'd have the file size issue in Illy, or if you did, it could be shrunk readily enough.

How important is that file size? What are you actually printing & are you certain that resolution is actually needed for that job? No sense in working on a humongous file if the detail does not show up or can't be seen from the location of the finished sign...

 

[mark in tx]

Look for a book called "Hacking Photoshop", excellent resource on wringing the last bit of performance out of your computer.