PSE5 Very Slow

[SCRAPPYGIRL]

Can anyone tell me if it's normal that when you apply a background to a layer in PSE5 that it takes a very long time - like a couple of minutes.

[kevq]

Carol,
I use PSE 5 and don't have any noticeable delay when applying a background.
Some are a fraction slower than others but none take a couple of minutes.
How much RAM have you got?
I used to have 1 Gb and that was sometimes very slow, now I have 2 Gb, maybe that's the difference.
Kev.

[SCRAPPYGIRL]

Thanks for the quick reply Kev. I do have 2 gigs of ram, so doubt if that is the problem. I think I'll run a virus check and see if I find anything there.

[NickLewis]

Carol,

As well as a virus check, I'd also suggest a general check of your PC housekeeping.

Is there adequate working space on your C: drive (or wherever your Windows swap file & PSE scratch disks are located)? Is the drive fully defragmented?

And a spyware sweep would be sensible if your AV solution doesn't cover that as well.

Nick

[TonyW]

Carol - it does depend on a lot of things - how big your image is and what other things are running at the time. You might want to take a look at your memory preferences and if it's set to a low percentage increase it a bit (but don't go too high as that gives other problems)

1058

Also take a look at your scratch sizes when it starts to slow down. If the first number gets to be close to the second number then Elements starts having to cache to the hard drive and that will slow things down too.

1059

Tony

[SCRAPPYGIRL]

Carol - it does depend on a lot of things - how big your image is and what other things are running at the time. You might want to take a look at your memory preferences and if it's set to a low percentage increase it a bit (but don't go too high as that gives other problems)

1058

Also take a look at your scratch sizes when it starts to slow down. If the first number gets to be close to the second number then Elements starts having to cache to the hard drive and that will slow things down too.

1059

Tony

Hi Tony,
I have no idea where to go to look at my scratch sizes, don't even know what they are for that matter. I thought I was pretty computer literate, but I guess not so much after all.

Nick - I currently have about 32 gb of free space on my c drive, I sould think that would be adequate.

[NickLewis]

Carol, the scratch file sizes are an option in the Info palette (Window>Info if it's not already displayed).

The fields shown in the palette are selected from Palette Options in the More dropdown.

Nick

[BrianZero]

Hi Carol
Amount of your RAM is Good
Amount of your free disk space is not big amount

A scratch disk is best on a separate drive
Can be a partition on your physical drive [C:\] Athough you dont really have room to be safe

But best as a partition on a second drive [Suggest about 5 Gig]
You will need software to do this

If you only have the one drive I would suggest you install a second drive
[Internal [Best] or External - external drives tend to be slower]

That way you can use a large partition as a back up for your C:\ drive and a second partition for a scratch disk [Works well for me]

[NickLewis]

Hi Carol
Amount of your RAM is Good
Amount of your free disk space is not big amount
Surely 32Gb is adequate? :eek: How big an image do you think Carol's editing? :) :confused: This absolute amount of space is not likely to be a problem in normal use, is it? And it wouldn't present a defragmentation performance problem (even theoretically) unless the drive itself is 200 - 300 Gb in size.

Whilst I agree that scratch disks perform better on separate physical drives, I doubt that scratch disk location as such is the principal cause of a minutes long processing delay.

Partitioning C: to provide scratch disk space will produce little or no benefit, except to guard against scratch disk defragmentation, because the same physical drive mechanism & interface will still be being tasked to two purposes. Ideally, scratch disks, Windows virtual memory, the image files, and the application itself would all be on separate physical drives. But I suspect few people run like that.

There's an interesting article on PS memory usage (CS2 unfortunately - there doesn't seem to be a PSE version) here (http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=320005).

(BTW, you only need special software if you want to rearrange existing partitions. XP ships with all that's needed to partition a new drive.)

Nick

[SCRAPPYGIRL]

Nick and Brian, I really appreciate your taking the time to help me, but in all honesty I'm totally lost. Not to sound dumb, but what exactly does a scratch disk do?

Also, here's what's going on.
If I open a photo I can drag a background layer over it and the background appears almost at once. However, If I open a new blank file and drag a background to the layer, it takes several minutes to appear. AND, it somewhat freezes up the everything else until the background does appear.

[BrianZero]

Hi Nick
The 2Gig memory 'Should' cover normal editing then on to virtual mem [Scratch] Also the mem stick could be faulty ?

Just suggesting what might be 'better'

Pretty sure XP will only partition a new disk
You will then need additional s/ware to move or resize

Also, I think a backup disk is almost essential - if you have ever had HDD go belly up you will understand where I am coming from .

Also extra partitions are good for locating data only
[Easier to copy / backup as everything is in one place]

With regard to the 32Gig disc space it almost certainly wont be contiguous, some of it possibly in use by system, especially if RAM was to be faulty.

Carol,
I know these issues can be confusing but trying to be helpful

[NickLewis]

Hi Carol,

A scratch disk is a place on your hard drive(s) that PSE uses to store data when it runs out of RAM to work in. Windows does something similar on a global scale when it runs out of space in RAM as well. This is called virtual memory.

However, unless you're editing very big images, or have loads of other programs running at the same time as PSE, then I'm finding it difficult to believe that you're running out of RAM, as you have 2Gb installed.

What size are the images that you're editing? And what size blank file are you creating? And did you check the sizes and settings that Tony mentioned?

Nick

[SCRAPPYGIRL]

What size are the images that you're editing? And what size blank file are you creating? And did you check the sizes and settings that Tony mentioned?

Hi Nick,
Your last sentence brought on an "aha moment."
My blank file setting was way too large, and that was creating the problem. I wasn't paying much attention to the size and somehow it was about 100 inches by 100 inches. How it got to be that I haven't a clue. But I changed it to 8x10 inches, and TADA - no problem.

Thank you Nick, Brian and Tony for being so patient with me and especially for helping me find and correct the problem.

[TonyW]

Carol: Glad you found the problem - if you look in the right hand side of the new document screen you'll see the image size - 100 x 100 in at 300 ppi is 2.5GB :eek:. That will give all your memory and your scratch disk a real good work out :D

Tony

[NickLewis]

Hi Carol,

Yes - I can see that a file 125 times bigger than you wanted might slow the machine down a tad......

Glad you're sorted!

Nick