High dpi Problem

[bchoward]

I recently had 250 old slides converted to 3,000 dpi (because of hopes of enlarging some to at least 8" x 10") on CDs. Besides focus problems due to doming of the film, which a $+60,000 Nikon scanner can't correct, my PSE-3 program shuts down if I try to work @ 3,000 dpi. And even if I drop the dpi to 2,000 or even 1,500, if takes 10 to 15 minutes per step of PSE-3 processing.
My Mac is a G-4/1.25Ghz-OS10.3.9 and all Apple updates, with 61 GB storage available and 758 MB RAM. The scanner owner/operator says that sounds plenty strong, that they work @ 3,000 dpi on a Mac all the time, and that my PSE-3 program may need uodating. I didn't know that was possible, but if so, I'd appreciate a steer toward help.
Barney Howard
Bend, OR

[Carbone]

Hi,

I have a Powermac G5 dual pro 1.8 Ghz with 2GB of RAM. I have PSE3 and I tried to scan a document at 4800 dpi (my scanner doesn't offer 3000, it goes from 2400 to 4800 in one step).

The document has a 7200 x 6400 dimension. Just this document alone used 489MB of RAM. Knowing that Mac OS X requires 256 to just work properly, you've already exceeded the physical RAM allocated in your system. Usually, this shouldn't cause a problem, but it will make things run very slow.

Also, what is the memory allocation setting in PSE? Click on Preferences, memory and scratch disk, and check if you have at least 50% allocated to Photohop. You could try to max it to 80% or more, but this will imply that nothing else will be running on your computer (PSE alone, no e-mail, no web, no scanner software).

See if this helps.

Ray

[bchoward]

Carbone-
Thanks for the advice. I upped the memory allocation from 50% to 65%, but haven't had a chance to see if it helped yet. I'll also check into adding RAM, speed, and capacity, but will have to let a consultant handle getting under the hood.
After the guru visit, I'll get back about whatever results. Thanks again.
bch