Scrolling is way too slow in PSE5

[Cavan]

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[Wendy]

Hi ...

It may well be that need PSE5 needs a lot more from your computer than PSE2 did ... what are your computer specs ??

Wendy

[Cavan]

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[baycruisers]

I don't know if the amount of video memory would make a difference, but how much of that do you have?

Your PC's specs seem to be more than adequate for quicker scrolling.

[NickLewis]

Cavan,

The 1280x1024 image you're talking about is quite small, and should be scrolling without difficulty.

Looking at the specs you gave, the first thing that strikes me is that your hard disc is too full. You have about 12% of free hard disc space.

I don't know whether you defragment your drive regularly, but Windows is unable to defragment a drive effectively once free space falls below about 15-20%.

If the drive is heavily fragmented, then your Windows paging file may be fragmented, and Photoshop may be unable to create an adequately sized "scratch disk".

I'd try a bit of housekeeping on your drive, then a defrag. Failing that, look at what else is running on your PC at the same time, and also make sure you're up to date with your anti-virus and spyware definitions and scans. (But I doubt this problem is because of an infection.)

In principle your PC is well up to the task, and PSE doesn't normally behave like this. I don't think the preference settings are the issue. I run PSE5 in 1Gb RAM, with only 500Mb available to PSE.

Nick

[baycruisers]

Cavan,

The 1280x1024 image you're talking about is quite small, and should be scrolling without difficulty.

Looking at the specs you gave, the first thing that strikes me is that your hard disc is too full. You have about 12% of free hard disc space.

Nick

Good observation and makes sense.

I highly recommend you buy an external hard drive. Prices have never been lower. This morning's Best Buy circular lists a Seagate 750 GB external on sale for $199. Smaller drives are available for comparable prices. Once you move things off the drive you can then defrag.

I have ALL my images and documents on an external HD. When I bought a new PC a week ago all I had to do was plug it into the new computer and reinstall apps. It went flawlessly and without the usual heartburn.

[Cavan]

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[NickLewis]

Did you clear some more space on your HD first? If you defrag with only 12% available, then, although defrag apparently runs to completion, its effectiveness can be compromised, so you might not see a big benefit.

If you didn't, run Disk Cleanup (in System Tools), which should help clear temporary files, empty the Recycle Bin, etc.

Then I'd start looking at anything else that may be running in the background and hindering PSE performance.

But can I clarify what you're doing? What zoom settings are you using? If I was doing what you describe, I'd be using 100% at most, at which point the marquee tool will scroll the screen quite quickly. But if I start going in to zoom levels of 4-500%, then it does slow down appreciably.

Nick

[Cavan]

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[NickLewis]

Why on earth are you scrolling at 1600%?? Yes, expanding a selection at that magnification is glacial.

But scrolling - via the scroll bars - is still instant.

If you want to crop at that magnification, then I suggest using the crop tool instead. You can set up a crop area at 100% or less, then zoom in, scroll to the drag handles (instantly) and adjust their fine position. More control than a marquee selection, anyway, IMHO.

Much less stressful.

Nick

[Cavan]

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[jlwilm]

Cavan,

Well, it sounds like you may not be back to this thread, but, just in case, I think you need to back off.

None of the other programs you are talking about have anything like a 1600% zoom capability. You are comparing apples and oranges. Not a vallid comparison.

If you use a good tool in a fundamentally flawed way, you may not be happy with the results. This is not a surprise, but is expected.

Are you zoomed in at 1600% for some valid need or are you just experimenting and found something annoying?

[Cavan]

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[Wendy]

Cavan ...

People really are not insulting you ... so please don't take it that way. We are a friendly group here and on this forum insults are something we don't do.

All they are saying is that if you do you cropping at that magnification with PSE5 then it is going to be very slow ... is there some special reason why you need to use that resolution to crop ?

I must admit that I think PSE5 is slower in quite a few places than PSE2 was and I suspect its due to all the extra things they added in. Just one thought I have my Maximum used by Elements set higher than you do ... mine is set at 70%.

Try that and see if it makes any difference ... :)

Wendy

[NickLewis]

Cavan,

I presume that your last two posts are your way of saying "thank you" to people who spend their own spare time attempting to assist complete strangers for no reason other than they want to be helpful. Not the way I'd choose, but each to his own.

Looking back at the post that annoyed you so much, I didn't insult you or imply you were a moron. You may have inferred that. I did let a little exasperation show through that the reason that you were having such a problem was actually because you were using the tool in a manner for which I suspect it wasn't designed. As every one of your previous posts had an undercurrent of bad-tempered abrasiveness and superiority, I felt justified in a little exasperation. Perhaps you hadn't meant to imply those things, but that's what I inferred....

As for the relative performance difference between PSE2 and PSE5, that question can only really be answered by Adobe's software engineers, who alone will know whether the current performance is unavoidable, accidental, or has been deliberately designed in.

This is pure speculation, but I incline to the latter. The main purpose of being able to expand selections at extremely high zoom levels is to achieve high precision in making those selections. For that you need the program to respond relatively slowly. Precise pixel-level editing doesn't require high speed scrolling from one side of the image to the other - indeed it is made extraordinarily difficult if the displayed image moves too quickly.

It is perfectly possible that Adobe deliberately slowed selection expansion down in order to improve usability for its core purpose. (What was acceptable in PSE2 when released may have become unusable as PC performance increased, for example.)

But since you can quickly make crops and adjust them to high precision in other ways, (e.g. using the Crop tool, as I suggested), I can't see a problem that justifies getting aerated about!

Nick

[baycruisers]

I enlarged an image to 1600% and had no idea what I was looking at or what to do with it. I usually heal/clone at 200% or less, so 1600% wouldn't work for me.

[Chuck S.]

Just for the record, I opened an image in PSE5 on this underpowered laptop which keeps giving me messages that my hard drive is nearly full (:eek:), and I tried scrolling at 1600% as described by the OP - no perceptible delay.

Cavan, have you tried the reset preferences routine? That often corrects erratic behavior by Elements (or full Photoshop) that can't be fixed by other means. If you have PSE2, you're higlhly likely to know that routine: shut down PSE5, hold down Shift, Alt and Ctrl keys while restarting, then say yes to the dialog box that pops up.

Beyond that, as Yul Brynner said in "The King and I"...."'Tis a puzzlement."

[NickLewis]

Chuck - it's not scrolling at 1600% as such that is slow.. It's making a rectangular marquee selection and then trying to expand that off screen. Is that what you are doing?

Nick

[Chuck S.]

Nick, I hadn't tried the offscreen scrolling before but did so now. Looks like top to bottom of a 10 mp image in maybe 5 seconds or less...? And this computer is a simple Dell Latitude D820 with no bells and whistles...

[NickLewis]

Chuck, On the face of it, that's much faster than mine. My PC spec is closer to the OP's. I'll try and have a further dabble later.

Nick

[Cavan]

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[jlwilm]

Cavan,

Really wasn't trying to be offensive or insulting but understand how you might react that way. Sorry.

It sounds like the type of thing you used to do won't work the same way in PSE5 - or PSE4 for that matter - I have both and they act the same way.

So, if you wish that type of functionality, in that way, your only alternative may be to go back to PSE2.

Before abandoning that though I would suggest that you consider some other alternatives, especially as sooner or later, you may need to get a new computer (VISTA) and it is unlikely that PSE2 will run on that platform, but others out there may have worked that magic.

One alternative I would suggest is experimental in nature and you might want to make sure that you know what the settings are before making any changes. What I am suggesting is to turn down the mouse movement speed or pointer speed in combination with using a smaller zoom size. The slower mouse speed reacts sluggishly to movements and also requires more lifting and repositioning of the mouse but may give you the control you need.

Another alternative instead of using the rectangular tool to select your crop area, try the crop tool at a lesser zoom, then zoom in with to adjust the crop or location. You can also move the crop tool selected space by using the keyboard arrows for up/down/left/right movements of the entire frame as well as grabbing the corner handles of the crop frame and adjusting the size.

The second alternative requires fiddling but it is or should be relatively easy using the scroll wheel on your mouse, but leaves all other mouse movements untouched.

So, in summary, I think what you want – which I assume is to be able to use PSE5 with the same flexibility as PSE2 – can’t be done, but there may be alternatives that will give you the same capacity.

[Wendy]

Hi Cavan ..

Ah now I understand ...

If nothing else works that what you could do is keep both PSE5 & PSE2 on your computer and just switch to PSE2 to do the cropping. Its not ideal but it may work ...

Wendy :)

[Rusty]

Cavan,

I attempted to recreate what you are describing. I don't have PSE2 but I do have PSE1, 3 and 5.

In PSE1 I created a new file with the pixel sizes you created. Scrolling (dragging) the marquee tool from the upper left corner to near the lower right corner took me 9 seconds (at 1600% view). I then closed PSE2 and opened PSE5. The same thing took me about 12 seconds.

I'm not smart enough to guess at why you are experiencing such long times in PSE5. And, my PC has about half the "computing power" of yours.

As far as the "help" you are getting here. Maybe you got up on the wrong side of the bed today. That happens to me sometimes.

I think you are taking offense where no put-down was either present nor intended. Every one of the people that tried to help you have a "history" on this forum of being both helpful and kind in attempts to respond to Qs posed by others.

OK, that's my 2¢. If you care to stick around, you will find a lot of helpful people here.

Rusty

[Chuck S.]

To set the record straight, I tried again - this time making sure I was in the lower left corner of the image when I started. Sure enough, it took a couple minutes to select the whole image (this one a 3648 by 2736 pixel photo).

Cavan is right - it's a tough slog.

[jlwilm]

I tested the same thing with my version of CS3 last night and it does the same scroll remarkably faster - not instantaneous, but FASTER.

I guess it must be an intentional Adobe thing.